


Keep Them On A Leash

by WyattAnderson (dappled_feathers)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (whump is mostly Draco but errbody gets a lil taste honestly), Alternate Universe where Draco isn't such a shithead, Draco Grows A Heart, Fanfic As Group Therapy, Hurt/Comfort, I project too much onto fictional characters and this is the end result, I swear, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor suicidal ideation, Multi, Whump, aka it's complicated, aka the long long road to therapy, aka when is it not complicated with these kids, and Learns Some Things, but this has a happy ending, by accident, did i mention that i'm sorry, draco joins the golden trio, eventual graphic depiction of an animal corpse, eventual implied polyamory (sort of), graphic depiction of physical injuries, last chapter is a playlist, like when I say whump I mean WHUMP, this completely got away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27088894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dappled_feathers/pseuds/WyattAnderson
Summary: It’s another moment of horrible clarity, another confirmation of something he, somehow, already knew. Potter might be a saint, and even Granger, sometimes, but not Ron. Ron isn’t nice, and half the time he isn’t even kind. But he is so, so good, even when he can’t see it in himself. He decides to be good, even when it doesn’t come naturally. It’s something Draco is afraid he might never understand: how someone who sees the world the same way he does can still make such radically different choices.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Comments: 112
Kudos: 159





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, here I am again with another rare pair that absolutely no one asked for. This started out as a narrative foil character study but then it grew legs, seized the computer, tied me up in the corner, and wouldn't let me leave till I finished it. 2020 has been a wild goddamn ride, y'all. 
> 
> This one is finished (FOR ONCE!!!) so I'll be updating roughly...twice a week-ish? But it's me so who knows haha.
> 
> Title taken from Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullaby", specifically the lyrics: "Don't you ever tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash."

⇄⇄⇄

There is a room in Malfoy Manor dedicated to the genealogy of wizarding pureblood families. Or perhaps _overtaken_ is a better word- overtaken like an old oak choked by ivy, names and marriage dates and progeny sprawled across walls until the dove grey paint underneath is almost totally obscured. There is a room like this in almost every pureblood house, Draco knows. 

Well. In the houses of the pureblood families worth knowing. He doubts there is a room like this in the Weasel hovel. 

Draco’s own name is just to the left of the fireplace, birth date pronounced proudly in elegant cursive identical to his mother’s. Every name is written in a slightly different hand. The fireplace itself is marble, as grey as the walls and the furniture. The Weasel clan is on the wall too, of all things, on the other side of the mantle. _The_ Weasel’s name is exactly opposite his. 

It always gives Draco a jolt to see it, like blasphemies echoing through a church- they are blood traitors, after all. They might be purebloods and cousins to the Malfoys, but only by marriage, and distantly at that. But the room doesn’t seem to care about allegiances, and the names are there nonetheless, bold and messy and not at all elegant. Undeniable.

Draco hates this room, for many reasons. And like many things he hates, he is irresistibly drawn to it. In the past, this was where he did homework over summer hols, working family history into his essays. Now, it's a refuge from the slithering steps of the madman his parents have sworn allegiance to. That _he_ has sworn allegiance to. That he bears the Mark of, black and burning- always, always _burning_ \- on his left arm. 

But this room is small. The furniture is outdated, worn. Comfortable. The Dark Lord rarely comes here. 

Sometimes Draco comes here, not to work, not to hide, but to study the fireplace, the marble, so stately and so cold. A solid barrier between his name and Weasley’s. And sometimes, Draco wonders if being a blood traitor isn’t preferable to being owned. 

⇄

“This is an honor, Draco,” the Dark Lord whispers.

His arm. It hurts so badly. His eyes fill with tears and he blinks them away, determined not to cry. Father is not here, but he will know if he cries. The Dark Lord will make it hurt worse, if he cries.

“I am so proud of you,” the Dark Lord tells him, and Draco’s skin crawls.

“Do this, and you will earn my favor. I reward those who serve me well. Do this, and your family regains my trust. Fail, and the consequences will be…”

The Dark Lord doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t need to. Draco already knows the rest. 

⇄

It’s a split-second decision. 

⇄

The chandelier that’s been in his family for seven generations falls with an almighty crash and an explosion of Austrian crystal. One moment Draco is in a corner, doing his best to pretend he doesn’t exist, and the next he’s on the ground. His right side aches, his ankle is dripping blood where a shard of crystal is embedded just under the bone. A line of fire blazes down his forearm; he turns- Potter is there, scrabbling at his wrist, drawing lines with his nails in his haste to grab the wands clenched in Draco’s fist. Draco tightens his grip, so that his bones stand out white against his knuckles. Why, he doesn’t know.

Granger isn’t screaming anymore, but it doesn’t matter, because everyone else is. Aunt Bella’s quick-fire spells taint the air acid green. Weasley has his arms around Granger, lifting her from the rubble. Draco tries to stand and his stomach heaves, so instead he crawls, on his hands and knees, towards the center of the wreckage. He’s still got the wands. 

“No!” Potter yells and throws himself on Draco. Draco’s knees give out, the room going fuzzy at the edges. The wands clatter to the floor and Potter scoops them up, almost kicking Draco in the face in his haste to reach his friends. The house elf- Dobby, his name is Dobby, he used to bring Draco soup when he was sick, Draco laughed when Father gave him extra punishments for made-up offenses- reaches for Lovegood, who is grasping for Weasley, who holds fast to Granger, who clasps Potter’s hand. 

They’re getting away. They’ll escape. Draco won’t have to hear the screams of yet another classmate, won’t have to watch yet another person die in a flash of green.

Somewhere above his head is the _sing_ of sharp steel cutting through the air. Draco looks up, and his eyes land on Weasley’s- narrowed, accusing.

His hand reaches out of its own accord. An icy bite to his bruised fingers, and Draco is pulled into oblivion. 

⇄

It was all the Weasel’s fault, of course.

Mother and Father didn’t have many rules, but their greatest commandment when he was younger was _make friends_ . To Father, this meant henchmen; to Mother, allies. People to do his bidding, or watch his back. Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson were easy enough; they’d known each other since they were in nappies, and Crabbe and Goyle in particular had always been willing to follow his lead. Pansy, he wasn’t always sure about- Draco was fairly certain he’d end up marrying her one day, and he wasn’t sure if you were allowed to treat your future wife like a _friend_. 

Sometimes it got _boring_ , though, Crabbe and Goyle agreeing with everything he said, or keeping Pansy at a respectful distance. Draco wanted- well, he didn’t know what he wanted. The word _equal_ came to mind, but Draco dismissed it as soon as it came. Malfoys didn’t have _equals_. 

It was quite an accident when they met- of course it was. Draco was barely ten, too tall and gangly, clumsy in a way that made Mother despair. He kept tripping over his own feet, trying to keep up with Father as he strode down the Ministry corridor. If you asked him today, Draco couldn’t begin to explain why he was there in the first place. 

Meeting the Minister was exciting for all of two minutes, before the prestige of his title faded away, leaving nothing but a fat man in a bowler hat. He and Father engaged in what seemed to Draco perfectly pointless conversation- who cared what the family donation went to, it wasn’t like they didn’t have the money to give more- so Draco slipped out of the office and struck out on his own. 

He wandered the halls, poking his head in various offices. In one room, a man with horns on his head was playing cards with a violet-colored monkey. Another room was crowded and depressing-looking, dozens of slack-faced people hunched over desks and scribbling madly away. One woman, who must have been at least a hundred, asked if he was lost. Draco shook his head no, backed out of the dismal scene, and jogged down the hallway opposite. 

The farther he went, the smaller the offices got, and the dirtier the floor became, until at last he was face to face with the door of what he ordinarily would’ve passed off as a broom cupboard, only there were voices coming from inside it. Arguing voices, one weary and deep like a man’s, the other- the other like another boy’s. 

Draco paused, and the door nearly hit him in the face when it opened. He ducked behind it swiftly as a patchy-looking man with thinning red hair trudged out, leaving the door open behind him. Draco waited silently until he rounded the corner, then poked his head into the room.

His original guess was right- it _was_ practically a closet, with barely enough room for the two desks nearly swallowed by all the paperwork and-

-and Muggle junk? Draco frowned, but didn’t bother inspecting the place further, because there really _was_ a boy in there, just as ginger and freckled as the man, with a brilliant scowl on his face. _Much_ more interesting.

The boy’s eyebrows lifted, though, when he saw Draco. “Who’re you?”

Draco mentally ran through the checklist Father gave him: _Step confidently. Speak clearly. Always lead with your surname. They’ll want to be your friend when they realize you don’t need them. Never forget: You don’t need them._

“I’m Malfoy- Draco Malfoy. Who are you?” He was pleased to hear his voice ring through the room, tiny as it was. 

The boy _laughed_ . “Draco? That’s your name? _Really_?”

Draco felt his eyes widen in shock and quickly schooled his face into a frown. Clearly this boy didn’t recognize his name, so _clearly_ , he wasn’t from one of the families worth knowing. 

“What’s your name, then?” Draco asked. 

The boy’s laughter stopped abruptly, and he went right back to scowling. “Ron Weasley.”

Oh. _Oh_ . This wasn’t good. Draco _was_ from one of the families worth knowing, and he _did_ recognize that surname- Father wouldn’t like him being near this boy, practically making polite conversation. 

Draco should’ve simply walked away, with a turn of his heel that would convey to this Weasley just how little he or his opinions mattered. But something- the clear challenge in Weasley’s eyes, perhaps, the sheer novelty of not being immediately respected, _perhaps_ \- 

“My name might be funny, but at least I’m not a blood traitor,” was what came out of his mouth. 

Weasley was the first one to throw a punch, but by the time Father found him, Weasley had a split lip and a black eye in the shape of Draco’s knuckles. Father very nearly had to pull Draco off, until Draco saw the Minister just behind him and jerked himself to attention. 

“Draco,” Father said in the studiously cool voice that promised a much sterner talking to later, “explain yourself.”

“He insulted our family, Father,” Draco said, because even at that age, he instinctively knew he couldn’t say _I punched him because he’s too interesting_. 

“Did not!” Weasley protested hotly. “That’s a lie!”

“You’re the liar, you bl-”

“DRACO.” Father’s voice brought them both to utter silence. “This is unacceptable behavior.”

“Oh Lucius,” the Minister interjected in an indulgent tone, “they’re only boys- a scrap here and there- it’s natural-”

Father’s eyes fastened on Weasley, examined him with a little curl of his lip like the boy was nothing more than something nasty stuck to his shoe. “Maybe for some boys.”

Weasley’s eyes sparked and his mouth opened, but Draco didn’t get to hear what he had to say- Father steered him by the shoulder and marched him away. 

From that point on, Draco was given a new rule: _Never associate with the Weasley boy._ He was not to speak to or even approach him, if he saw him again. He was to pretend the other boy didn’t exist.

Well. 

Thus began a long history of getting into fights with Ronald Weasley. 

⇄⇄⇄


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! I think from this point on, chapters should be coming out every Sunday and Wednesday after 5pm Eastern Standard Time (US east coast). The last chapter will likely be a playlist, but I plan on posting epilogues as well because this story will not let me go haha. Overall, the MAIN plot should have 17 chapters.
> 
> I'm also trying to tag sensitive things well in advance, as I don't want to surprise someone with a trigger when they're halfway through the fic, so keep in mind that what's tagged now may not show up for several chapters. If anyone has any concerns about upcoming sensitive material or needs more explanation, please don't hesitate to message me! I'll be glad to give further detail if it will help a reader's peace of mind. 
> 
> On that note, I am aware that this ship is always a little dicey because of the past these characters share, and I've done my best to portray Ron and Draco realistically without creating anything like an abusive power imbalance. Neither of them are good at expressing themselves (though they will get better at it), but even when they get physical with each other, I hope neither one of them appears afraid of the other. But of course, please don't hesitate to let me know if this doesn't come across well!

⇄⇄⇄

Draco lands hard on his back, breathless and amazed he didn’t Splinch himself. 

And horrified, immediately horrified, at what he’s done.

“I have to go back,” he hears himself say. His voice sounds a hundred miles away. He feels for his wand as best he can while the sky above him spins, then remembers- Potter took it. Potter _stole_ it.

“Give it back, he says more distinctly. “Give me my wand. I have to go back.”

He can hear the sea, he realizes, as his senses slowly return. His back is soaked, and _freezing_ . He presses his left arm against the wet sand and almost, _almost_ can’t hold back a sigh of relief as fiery skin meets cold earth. He rolls onto his side, and nearly retches when he sees all the blood, stark scarlet against the pale sand and oozing from his hand, which is still clutching Aunt Bella’s knife. 

“My _wand_ ,” he repeats, can’t think beyond anything else. 

“He’s bleeding,” a high, soft voice says, “Harry, he’s bleeding, look, we have to do something-”

“Right,” another voice answers, and Potter’s noble face swims into view. He points Draco’s wand- _his own fucking wand,_ the sheer _nerve_ is blinding, or maybe that’s the the blood loss- and says, “I’ll do it.”

Draco makes a show of struggling to sit up, then lunges at Potter. The impact knocks the breath from him and sets his left arm screaming, but it’s worth it when Potter is the one on the ground and his wand is safely back in his hand, where it _belongs_. He staggers a bit, but catches himself on one knee. Granger and Weasley have their wands out too, and are yelling, but Draco ignores them. He drops the knife, finally, and considers the two deep gashes scoring his palm. He wiggles his fingers, or tries to- his first two fingers twitch weakly, and that’s all. 

Draco frowns, considering. Nerve damage, probably, not to mention the severed muscles and blood loss, plus the possibility of infection. “ _Vulnera sanetur_ ,” he intones quietly, and prays it works. 

Nothing.

Not exactly surprising; Draco’s wand hasn’t performed properly for him since that night in the Tower. One more thing to keep Draco up at night, this betrayal of the one thing he could always count on. Made sweat bead on his brow as he struggled to make weak orbs of light float towards his bedroom ceiling, made him wonder what else inside him broke that night. But he’ll be damned if that keeps him from trying, especially now, with grey spots dancing at the edges of his vision, evidence of all the weaknesses he is never supposed to show.

He _will_ master this. Malfoys can master anything.

“ _Vulnera sanetur_ ,” he growls, putting every ounce of his will into the words. 

Slowly, so slowly, the blood flow slows until it stops altogether. Lightning-quick pain dances along his hand as the nerves heal themselves, his muscles knit back together, and new skin grows, pink and shiny, congealing into brand-new scars. Draco gasps, clinging to consciousness with his teeth. He wiggles his fingers again, and relief floods through him when they obey. 

He looks up. Everyone is staring at him, even the house-elf. 

“Someone punch me,” Draco says. 

They just keep staring at him, and Draco almost growls with the frustration he’s been keeping pent up inside him for far too long. “Come on!” he yells. “Have a go at me! I could kill any one of you right now, almost did once-” 

“Then why didn’t you,” Potter cuts in. Draco looks up. Potter’s voice is hard, his eyes even harder. “You’re a Death Eater, yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“So damn proud of that in sixth year, Malfoy, so kill us, like the Death Eater you are-”

“SHUT UP,” Draco screams. “YES, it’s all true! I’m a fucking Death Eater and I hate every single one of you, so punch me, damn it!”

“Why?” Weasley asks, and...and Draco can’t look at him. Simply can’t do it, because it _is_ all true, and he really did almost kill him, and the Mark is burning again-

“I have to go back,” Draco says. It’s a mantra, now. “I have to. He’ll kill them, he’ll kill my parents. I have to make it look like I fought my way out.”

“I’ll punch him,” Weasley volunteers.

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Draco says. “On the face, wherever you like, just make it a good one.”

Weasley frowns. “You know, it’s not nearly as satisfying when you’re asking me to do it.”

“Harry,” Granger says, voice small and hoarse. “We can’t let him go. He could lead them straight to us.”

“Straight to Bill, and Fleur,” Weasley realizes, eyes grim. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Potter agrees, and once again it’s the three of them, squaring their shoulders in perfect unison like a single creature Draco could never hope to match. He balls his hands into fists, his wand cutting into his right palm. 

Fuck. His wand. He’s nearly useless.

He can’t do this. 

All the fight goes out of him at once, leaving Draco dizzy and breathless. He drops the wand, which Potter snatches up almost immediately. His other knee finally gives in and hit the sand. 

“Right, then. This is me surrendering. Do what you want with me, kill me, I don’t care.” He might even thank them for it- a death at their hands surely can’t be worse than _him_ , and Draco’s as good as dead now anyway. 

A pause. Draco dares to look up. The three of them are still standing there, still looking at him, but the hard stares have turned shifty and unsure, and the lines of their shoulders have dropped. They seem lost, now that there’s nothing to fight. Draco feels a vicious sort of thrill at the realization- that they have no more real idea what they’re doing than he does.

Surprisingly, Weasley is the one that breaks the silence. “We’ll take him to Bill.” His voice is more confident than his face looks. “He’ll know what to do.”

⇄

Sometimes, in his mind, he goes back to the train. Back to Pansy’s fingers winding through his hair, her thigh warm underneath his head. Back to a room full of people looking at him, back to impeccable bespoke suits, back to the days when he was everything expected of him. Back when he had a _mission_ , the chance he’d always been waiting for, the Defining Act that was going to launch him into a future brighter than anyone could imagine. Back before botched poisons, before failure, before all-encompassing, soul crushing _fear_ that he is only now realizing had _always_ been there.

And Draco wishes, he _wishes_ , so hard that his heart might as well be adding to the blood on his shirt, that he had ever really been that boy. 

⇄

Luna Lovegood- nearly forgotten in all the chaos and confusion, always easily forgotten, despite her stubborn strangeness- helps him to his feet and lets him lean on her as they stagger up to the cottage that’s situated further up the dunes. She does this, even though he can feel the bones of her shoulder through his shirt, even though the bags under her eyes are indistinguishable from bruises, even though she must be more exhausted than he is. Draco is drained enough to be deeply moved by such matter-of-fact kindness from someone he once ridiculed on a regular basis, and has to fight away tears before they streak down his face.

He expects an interrogation from the oldest Weasley son and his wife, but he is again surprised. They’re all smothered with blankets and hot drinks rather than questions and accusations, even him (except the house-elf, who refuses the blanket and bustles into the kitchen to help make more hot chocolate). Maybe they’re assuming that his injuries mean Draco’s supposed to be there, that he’s somehow fought on their side. 

Draco clutches at his still-throbbing forearm. They’ll learn soon enough. In the end, Malfoys are on no side but their own. 

Beside him, Luna stands to examine a windchime made of seashells and fishing wire. “Muggles think these keep evil away,” she says. “But they’re wrong.” Her voice is even and distant as always, but there’s a cold undercurrent to her tone that was never there before. Draco shivers. 

If even Loony Lovegood has learned hardness, then they’re all truly doomed. 

⇄

“So.”

Draco sits very still, and tries to look bored and not at all intimidated by the sight of Bill Weasley looming in the kitchen doorway, staring sternly right at him. The scars that cut across his face are livid in the flickering firelight, making him look fierce and dangerous. 

It’s been an hour of sitting on this chair and listening to Luna snore away on the sofa next to him. Almost everyone else is in the kitchen, trading whispers and occasionally glancing back at him, flinching whenever they meet his eye. Draco wonders if they’ve decided how to get rid of him, then reminds himself that it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t care.

Finally, the oldest Weasley breaks eye contact and sighs, turning towards the trio huddled together at the kitchen table. “You three really are something else. What exactly are we supposed to do now?”

“We didn’t mean to bring him with us,” Hermione protests. “I would suggest keeping him at Grimmauld Place, but that’s compromised.”

“So is this house, now.”

“Can we turn him over to the Order? Or Obliviate him?” Potter asks.

The oldest Weasley cocks one eyebrow. “Is anyone here confident enough in their Obliviation skills to let him walk away afterwards?”

Silence. The newly minted Mrs. Weasley is staring at him from across the room, her eyes sharper than Aunt Bella’s dagger. Draco is sure that she’s in favor of killing him and having done with. If that’s the case, she’s the smartest one in the room. 

“My parents,” Draco reminds everyone, and they all whip their heads around to look at him. “If you do anything less than kill me, the Dar- _he’ll_ kill them instead. I’m a liability as long as I’m alive.”

“We’re not going to kill you,” Weasley says, looking revolted. “Just because your side’s all fucked in the head-”

“I could have told you anything,” Draco points out. “The D-” Merlin’s balls, he still can’t say it- “ _He_ doesn’t tolerate treachery. He’ll burn down the whole tree for one diseased branch.”

The oldest Weasley groans, and sits down hard on the couch. He jostles Luna, who wakes up for a moment before falling right back asleep. She looks even more gaunt, now, her skin tone sallow as a corpse, and it makes Draco’s stomach churn. He ignored the screams for _weeks_ , told himself that if he couldn’t see it, it wasn’t his problem, that it wasn’t his job to save her and he had enough on his plate...Even now, he has no idea what will happen to her, or how he could possibly help. 

Useless things might as well not exist at all, Draco reasons. 

The oldest Weasley points his wand at Draco, and he closes his eyes. His hands grip the chair hard enough to rip the fabric.

But he doesn’t die. Instead, a sense of warmth washes over him, and his eyes fly open. There is the odd sensation of being anchored in place, or being pinned to a board, a heaviness in his gut inherently limiting his movements. Draco, and the walls of the house, glow blue for a split second. He didn’t hear an incantation, but he didn’t have to. He understands.

His identity has been worked into the house wards. He can’t leave. 

“That will do for now,” the oldest Weasley says, rubbing his temples. “Until we figure out something else, you’re stuck here. I’m not risking anyone else for you.”

“But my parents,” Draco pleas.

“I’m sorry, Malfoy.” He really does look sorry, damn him. “But even if we did kill you, even if we sent your body back to them, there’s no guarantee that You-Know-Who will believe it. He could just as easily claim it’s a hoax, or simply kill your family out of pure spite. And we don’t have the manpower to launch a rescue mission in the heart of his headquarters. There’s nothing to be done.”

_Nothing to be done_. The same thing Draco told himself, over and over and over. Only this time, it’s true. Poetic justice, that.

“Fine.” Draco stands. “Fine.” He grabs a blanket and leaves the room, to follow Luna’s lead, to trade this waking nightmare for sleeping ones.

⇄⇄⇄


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got some unexpected free time on my hands today so y'all get this a few hours early! Warning: this chapter involves parental death so tread lightly if that's something that could set you off.

⇄⇄⇄

Draco was six when his father first started teaching him how to ride a broom. At that age, he wasn’t supposed to fly without supervision, but he was so excited to finally be up in the air, too convinced of his own maturity and skill, to pay attention to the rules. His father said he was a ‘natural’, so obviously, he was perfectly good enough to fly on his own. 

He fell, of course. He lost control of the broom about sixty feet in the air, right above a tree. Slipped off and hit every branch on the way down. He told Mother that he doesn’t remember the incident at all, but he lied. He remembers not having time to scream, and the sickening crunch when he finally hit the ground, and how terrified he was because he couldn’t breathe, _he couldn’t breathe_ , there was something white sticking out of his chest and so much blood and _he couldn’t breathe_ -

Almost every rib was broken. Two had gone through his left lung, and one had almost punctured his heart. It was dumb, blind luck that he happened to fall in full view of the kitchen windows, or he would’ve died well before anyone thought to look for him. He almost died anyway.

Draco doesn’t remember much else until two days later, when the Healers decided that he’d probably live, after all. Draco was in his bed, a potion helping him to drift in and out of sleep. Father, with no one else to yell his fear at or bully into fixing his son, was sitting silently next to him. Then, to Draco’s utter disbelief, Father started to cry, and he didn’t stop for a long time. 

After that, anytime Draco wanted something, it wasn’t difficult to fake being in pain. All he had to do was remember the incident, and his breath would be stolen away.

This is so much worse. 

He wakes up on the cottage kitchen floor, gasping and clutching at the pain, worse than a rib through the heart, worse than a panic attack or the fear of imminent death. It’s like someone tore open his chest and ripped his heart out completely. The Mark on his arm is livid, somehow perfectly visible even in the dark, the ink so black that the night looks grey in comparison. The skull’s eyes are staring at him. Its smile is so, so evil, and he knows. He _knows_.

They’re gone.

He’s never going to see his parents again.

The pain is too much. His vision fuzzes over, and he passes out. 

⇄

Draco is jolted awake by Dobby making breakfast with a truly unnecessary number of banging pots.

“Ah, you is awake!” The elf is far too cheerful for the situation. “You is waking the others now, perhaps? Breakfast is being ready soon.”

Draco sits up slowly, stiff all over, even his clothes. Then he remembers- everything he’s wearing is still caked in dried blood. After everything that happened, he forgot all about it. “I need a new shirt,” he mumbles, absentmindedly.

Dobby’s genial expression abruptly morphs into a deep scowl. “You is no longer being Dobby’s master, Draco Malfoy. Dobby is a free elf. Get your own shirt.”

Draco grimaces, and trudges into the sitting room. Luna is still asleep on the couch, and he’s loathe to wake her. Or any of them, really- they might attack him before they’re fully cognizant. He sits beside her instead, examining the Mark. It’s calmed now, not even a bit inflamed. If anything, his forearm is completely devoid of feeling. 

He doesn’t understand.

Draco should be raging. He should be desolate, he should be sobbing and cursing everything in sight, but he only feels...numb.

If he had his wand, he could clean himself up, maybe even escape...but no. He’s not good enough at warding magic to be able to free himself, and even if he could, with his parents... 

There’s nowhere to go, no one who’d be willing to help. Malfoys don’t have friends. Malfoys don’t have anyone but themselves.

There’s no _them_ now, though. Only him.

He’s alone.

Maybe it just hurts too much to feel, like standing on the edge of the Black Lake on a foggy evening and knowing there’s a shoreline on the other side, but being utterly unable to see it. 

He’s roused from his dark thoughts by the faint sounds of whispering on the upper stair landing, just soft enough that he can’t quite understand what’s being said. He slides off the couch and shuffles closer.

“It wasn’t really a lie,” Potter is saying. He sounds guilty. “We’ll just...be giving it back later than he expects.”

“Let’s be realistic,” Weasley adds. “Lie or not, we’ve got no choice. The Sword is our only real bargaining chip, and we need to get into that vault.”

Maybe he’s desperate for a distraction. Maybe there’s just no force on earth that can keep him from being a nosy parker. Either way, Draco finds himself straining to hear every word.

What vault? What sword? What could possibly be important enough to force the flawless Golden Trio to _lie_? 

“Maybe Malfoy-”

“Absolutely not,” Weasley cuts in harshly.

“It’s his mother’s family’s vault,” Potter argues. “Gringotts would let him in with no problem.”

“Not now, they wouldn’t. And do you really want to let a Malfoy within ten feet of the Sword of Gryffindor? He’d probably just steal it to try to work himself back into You-Know-Who’s good graces.”

Draco’s ears nearly fall off from the implications of what they’re saying. _The_ Sword of Gryffindor? Why would they need that? Draco just saw it a few weeks ago, in Dumbledore’s- _Snape’s_ \- office. How did they even get it from Hogwarts in the first place?

And what could his family have to do with any of this? Potter has his own fortune, Draco reasons, so it can’t be money they’re after.

Then Draco remembers- there is far, far more in the Black ancestral vault than money. There are objects of power, of rare value. Dark objects. Unique artifacts that can’t be found anywhere else. He’s never given them a moment’s thought, because they’ve never affected him, but there must be a particular thing the trio are after, something that will help them.

Maybe even something that will kill the Dark Lord.

He’s so caught up in his thoughts, he doesn’t hear them wrap up their conversation and head down the stairs. Weasley is the first one to see him, and he comes to an abrupt halt midway down the staircase. Potter and Granger almost smack into his back. “What are you doing, Malfoy?”

“I need a new shirt,” Draco says, gesturing to the bloodstains and trying to look innocent. “Or a wand, so I can clean myself up.”

Weasley narrows his eyes, then stomps into one of the bedrooms. He comes back with a Chudley Cannons shirt that might be twice as old as any of them, and chucks it at Draco’s head.

“Quit eavesdropping,” he says, then all three of them disappear downstairs to the kitchen.

The shirt is so threadbare that it’s nearly see-through in places, but it’s butter-soft from probably hundreds of washes. It’s embarrassing, wearing the merchandise of such an awful team ( _so_ like Weasley, to pledge his loyalty to a hopeless cause), but there’s a comfort to changing his clothes. And at least he has the coloring for orange. 

⇄

Draco makes his move while everyone else is eating breakfast, passing around eggs and bacon and deliberately not discussing strategy. Quietly as he can, he sneaks up the stairs and slips into the goblin’s -Griphook’s- room, closing the door softly behind him.

Said goblin eyes him with clear distaste. “What do you want.”

Merlin’s taint. He can’t believe he’s about to stand up for the people who are planning to rob him.

Well. Enemy of his enemy. “You should let them keep the Sword,” he says. “After they’ve gotten what they need from Gringotts.”

Griphook calmly folds his hands over his stomach. “No.”

Draco takes a deep breath, and tries to remain civil. He expected this, he reminds himself. “Why not? They need it, you don’t.”

“And how would you know what I do and don’t need?” Griphook’s eyes glint gleefully, and Draco recognizes that look in an instant. He knows they’re all desperate, and he’s _enjoying_ it.

“You know what? You’re right,” Draco says, and sits on the bed, just because he knows it’ll piss the goblin off. “What do you need? Maybe we could make a trade.”

“I said no.”

“Oh, come on! They’ll give it back afterwards, you know they will. They’re a pack of noble idiots who can’t lie to save their lives, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“Then what is the point?” Draco snaps. “It’s just a sword with a bunch of gems on it! Is it money you want? Potter has money, he’ll give you whatever you ask for.”

“You think money runs the world, little wizard,” the goblin half-sighed, half-sneered. “Magic is more than money. Magic is more you than the blood in your veins, the breath in your lungs. If you put your magic into something, it is yours. It is _you_. 

But then, I wouldn’t expect understanding from those who used to sell their own kind,” he spat.

Draco opens his mouth to argue some more, but nothing comes out. He thinks of his wand, in the custody of Mrs. Weasley number two downstairs, and how its absence feels like he really did lose his hand, even though he can’t do anything with it anyway. 

Damn it.

There’s no other argument he can give, and the goblin knows it, so Draco leaves the room. 

⇄

Draco isn’t kind, or even just nice, and he certainly isn’t good. He doesn’t understand good people- used to tell himself that they didn’t really exist. He can’t comprehend people whose actions go against their own self-interest.

But he has a feeling that Griphook isn’t good, either. Or at least, that he has absolutely no reason to be. Not to wizards, anyway. 

Nothing makes sense lately, but Griphook makes perfect sense. 

⇄

“He’s not going to keep to the deal,” Draco announces to the trio as soon as he’s downstairs.

“Honestly Malfoy,” Weasley says with an eye roll, “just because he’s a goblin-”

“It’s not that,” Draco interrupts. “He’s not going to let us take the sword, no matter what. To him, it’d be like watching us walk off with his grandmum’s coffin.” And he repeats every word Griphook told him. 

There is silence for a while, the uneasy quiet of reluctant agreement. Then-

“Us?” Weasley asks. His tone is accusing. 

“What?” Draco asks, nonplussed. 

“You said, ‘It’d be like watching _us_ walk off with his grandmum’s coffin’- thanks for that image, by the way, I definitely wasn’t having enough nightmares. Oh, and thanks for eavesdropping, too, not that I’m surprised at all. But _us_? What, d’you think you’re coming too?”

“I am,” Draco hears himself say, and no one is more shocked to hear him say it than he is. He’s not sure when he decided this. But somehow, he knows it’s the right decision to make. 

“Absolutely _not_ ,” all three of them say at the same time. 

“You’re a flight risk,” Potter says.

“If you’re seen, Voldemort will know for sure that you’re working with us and your parents will be in even more danger,” Granger says.

“You’re _completely_ untrustworthy,” Weasley says. 

“Yes, well, as you’ve already noticed, it’s my family you’re planning to steal from,” Draco snaps, good and irate now. “But it’s not really stealing if I’m with you to give my permission, because half of whatever is in there belongs to me now, anyway.”

Granger’s brow furrows. “Malfoy, what-”

“They’re dead,” he spits. He thrusts out his Mark for them to see. They all recoil at the sudden sight of the tattoo, so lurid and poisonous looking against the white of his skin.

“They’re dead,” he repeats. “ _He_ killed them. I felt it when it happened.”

No one will look at him except Weasley, who is staring right into his eyes as if determined to dig up a lie. Draco stares right back.

“Is there anything in that vault- _anything_ \- that you think might stop him?” he asks. No, demands.

Then waits, breathless, for a few agonizing seconds. 

Finally, Potter gives in with a sigh. “We think so.”

Draco nods once. “Fine. Then I’m coming with you. The presence of the vault’s technical owner might be just enough to convince one or two of the more kindly-disposed goblins to let you in and out without a fight.” 

Weasley groans. “This is ridiculous.”

“It is,” Granger says grimly. “But he’s right- it’s not like we have much of a choice.”

⇄

Draco’s parents never visited their vault in person, not that he could remember. For all that they flaunted their wealth, they never actually dealt with money directly. Most of their purchases were made on a kind of faith system with shopkeepers, the Malfoy name enough collateral to assure that they would receive payment directly from Gringotts a day or two later. This, Draco quickly learned, was an important part of being rich. 

Neither of them liked dealing with goblins, either, though this was far more typical. Most people in the Wizarding community shared that opinion, even if they weren’t as obvious about it. Draco didn’t like them, because he thought they were ugly. His father thought they were sneaky, which was his word for anything that wasn’t immediately understood. His mother thought they had ideas above their station. And it wasn’t like it was a secret that the Malfoys consistently turned the political tide against goblins, any time they tried to campaign for more rights. No, all in all, it was best for a Malfoy to never enter Gringotts. 

What a stupid practice, Draco realizes now, trusting your fortune to beings who have absolutely no reason to care about your interests. For all he knows, the vault is bare now, a few hundred Galleons spirited away here and there, bit by bit, so no one noticed. And some of those artifacts are definitely goblin-made. 

It would make sense if the goblins took it all back. It’s not like they wouldn’t deserve it. Griphook was in their basement for longer than Luna was. Draco never heard him scream, but that meant absolutely nothing. 

⇄⇄⇄


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is really short, I apologize! Next one will be longer, I promise- it's been a rough ass week :/

⇄⇄⇄

The oldest Weasley finds him later that afternoon, sitting by himself in the back garden, inspecting what plants they’ve managed to grow in such sandy soil. Mother always refused to take seaside holidays- she insisted they were common and vulgar, though Draco now suspects that she probably just hadn’t known how to swim- and he’s never seen most of these specimens in person before. The ballerina lavender hasn’t bloomed yet, but the sweet briar waves prickly evergreen arms at him, and tiny pink buds of Spanish Eyes peek here and there from among tall shoots of razor-sharp grass. Draco suspects the new Mrs. Weasley has done most of the landscaping. These plants are just like her: pretty to look at, but surprisingly hardy, and liable to make you bleed if you grab them wrong. 

It’s too bad Mother doesn’t- didn’t- like the coast. She would have secretly approved of this garden, Draco thinks, with a stabbing pang in his chest. 

He refuses to cry.

The oldest Weasley announces his arrival with a too-casual, “There are more clothes for you in the kitchen. Ron’s trousers should fit you okay, though they might be a bit long. We’ll make you up a cot in the sitting room, as well. You’ll have to kip next to Luna, for now at least.”

Draco doesn’t look at him, but murmurs, “Thanks.”

The oldest Weasley- really, Draco  _ must _ think of a better name to call him, his strict adherence to surnames is giving him a headache- sits down, and a supremely awkward silence descends for a while. Finally, he asks, “Is it true? About your parents?”

Draco digs his fingers into the pebbly soil. “Yes.”

“Can you be sure? How do you know?”

“The Mark,” Draco answers through gritted teeth. “I don’t think he meant for them to work like that originally- I don’t know- I mean, sometimes we feel things through them. When he’s really angry. Or victorious. But now, sometimes, he does it on purpose, lets us know things. Or sometimes we can feel it when one of us is hurt. Or…”

“...or dies,” the oldest Weasley finishes.

Draco nods. The oldest Weasley whistles, one long note that’s quickly carried away by the salty breeze. “That...that sounds awful, actually.”

Draco turns his face into the wind, feels sand and salt scrub against his cheeks. Abrasive, almost. Salt water is supposed to have some magical cleansing quality, but for him, probably not. Certainly his tears have never been any help.

The olde- Bill- grabs his shoulder and Draco starts, but Bill makes them face each other, makes Draco look him in the eye. “You have his Mark,” he says, “but...you’re not loyal.”

“No.”

“Have you ever been? Really?”

Draco shakes his head.

Bill eyes him suspiciously. But even when he’s trying to be threatening, he’s...well, he’s extremely good-looking, in a way that’s somehow too reassuring to be truly menacing. Strong-jawed hero, and all that. With that sharp glint in his eyes, though, the resemblance to his youngest brother is uncanny.

“Tell me why you’re trying to join my brother and his friends,” Bill commands.

Draco jerks his shoulder away and rolls his eyes with as much flippancy as he can muster. “I want revenge, obviously. They’re after the Dark Lord, so I’m coming along. Simple.”

“It’s really not,” Bill argues, but he looks somewhat mollified. He stands, and dusts off his trousers. “I don’t like this, but I won’t try to stop you.”

Draco snorts. “Very gracious, I’m sure.”

Bill smirks. “I’m nice like that. But if you think I’m releasing you from the wards until the last possible second, you’re mad.”

Draco shrugs, and lets him leave without another word. He’s  _ not  _ mad, so he didn’t expect anything different. 

⇄

Luna doesn’t fully wake up until that evening, when Draco is getting ready for bed, making up a cot on the floor by the fireplace. She blinks down at him from where she’s still sprawled on the sofa, expression confused and almost owlish, as if she can’t remember where she is or why he’s next to her. Draco doesn’t blame her- the situation they’ve found themselves in is impossible to imagine, much less anticipate.

“What time is it?” she asks, voice raspy.

“Around ten, I think,” Draco replies. He eyes her clavicle, protruding out too far from under the collar of her shirt, and adds, “If you’re hungry, Dobby probably has something set aside for you.” 

“I can wait till morning, I don’t want to bother him.”

“You won’t be, not if it’s you.” 

Luna gives him an odd look, but doesn’t move. So Draco sighs, and abandons his cot to wander into the kitchen. Sure enough, there’s a covered dish on the table- split pea soup, still warm and smelling of ham and dill, with a generous hunk of homemade bread. Draco carries it over and sets it on her lap. 

Luna eyes both him and the soup with suspicion, but hunger must win out- she dunks the bread in the soup, sniffs it tentatively, then takes an enormous bite.

“Do you know if Bill would let me borrow his owl?” she asks as she all but inhales her food. “I need to let my dad know where I am, and Nev- there’s someone else I need to get in touch with.”

“Of course he would. And don’t eat too fast,” Draco warns, “it won’t do you any good to throw everything up again.”

The spoon clinks loudly against the bowl as Luna drops it mid-bite. “Why are you being nice?” Luna asks abruptly.

Draco immediately loses his courage, and turns his back to fiddle with the blankets on his cot. The truth is, he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter, not in a cosmic sense. It wouldn’t have killed her to wait till morning to eat. 

It  _ shouldn’t  _ matter. Nothing should matter anymore.

“Why did you help me?” Draco asks in return. “When we- when we first got here, and I couldn’t walk, I mean. Why did you help?”

Silence presses against his back, and he regrets asking at all. But then:

“I’m not sure. I suppose I didn’t really think about it, at the time. So much was happening.” Another pause. “I don’t think I’m sorry I did it, though.”

“Well, I am,” Draco blurts out. His eyes sting, and he resists the urge to swipe at them. “Sorry, I mean. I should’ve- when you were- I should’ve tried, but I was scared-”

It’s probably the worst apology in the history of the world, and nowhere near enough. It echoes, through the room, through Draco’s chest, down through his shaking fingers:  _ not enough, not enough, not enough… _

Draco chances a look up- Luna is frowning into her soup, furrowed brows creating a little wrinkle between her eyes. It’s an expression he’s never seen on her face before. 

“I’m so tired of being angry,” she says finally, after another agonizing moment. “I’m not used to it, and I’m not sure what good it does, anyway.”

Draco shrugs, a little helplessly. “I dunno, I always found it rather...motivating.” 

Luna hums, considering. “Maybe. But I don’t want to be mad at you, not when things could be different.”

“You’d be more than justified,” Draco responds, shooting himself in the foot, as always.

“Well, yes, but that’s not really my point.”

If that’s not the point, then Draco must have missed it entirely, but he’s certainly not about to talk her back into being angry with him, so he lets the matter rest. He slips under the blankets and snuggles into the warmth of his cot, staring at the dying embers in the fireplace and trying to ignore the churning in his gut. He refuses to examine why this conversation has left him more unsettled, not less. 

⇄⇄⇄


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh jeez, this chapter's quite short as well. I took a second look through all my chapters and they're...not very consistently sized. Could I fix it? Possibly. Will I? Nope. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy, regardless! Action things will happen eventually but I decided to spend 20,000 words holding Draco under a microscope first (me? projecting my personal turmoil onto a fictional character? it's more likely than you think!)

⇄⇄⇄

Draco nearly has a conniption the next day, when he learns what the plan for Gringotts is. The four of them are gathered on the beach by the water’s edge, the crash of waves not quite loud enough to cover up his shout.

“Impersonate  _ Bellatrix _ ? Are you mad?!”

Granger frowns and crosses her arms defensively. That means she  _ knows  _ just how bad of an idea this is.  _ Why is this the plan if Granger knows how bad it is _ . She’s supposed to be the smart one of the Trio, for Salazar’s sake. 

“We have her wand,” Potter explains, patient and slow like he’s teaching a five-year-old their sums. Draco wants to throw sand in his earnest face. “She’s the only person other than your mo- other than you, that has access to the vault, and we can’t use you.”

Draco steadfastly ignores the slip up. “Why not? I said I’d help, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, and that means fuck all, because it’s you,” Weasley interrupts. He’s busy trying to skip stones across the frothy surf with, surprisingly, some success. His next throw is rather vicious, and the stone sinks immediately. “Just because we have to bring you with us doesn’t mean we trust you to spearhead the whole operation.”

“So your plan is to impersonate one of the most recognizable and  _ dangerous  _ witches in the country? Fantastic, great alternative,” Draco spits back. 

“It’s not  _ that _ terrible an idea,” Granger objects. “Bellatrix sticks close to You-Know-Who, right? She hardly ever goes out in public unless it’s at his bidding. That means the chances of us running into her, or running into someone who’s just seen her, are incredibly small. I can pull it off, as long as I don’t have to do it for too long.”

Draco finds himself wishing Luna were here, instead of inside writing letters. Despite her oddness, she probably has more sense than these three. “Please. I  _ know _ Bellatrix. I’ve literally been inside her head, and believe me, ‘evil’ is a massive understatement. You’re far too much of a goody two-shoes to ever fool anyone. And by the way,” he hurries to add, because Weasley is clearly about to object again, “using her wand is an even stupider idea. They know it’s been stolen, remember? Gringotts will be the first place they report the theft.”

Granger blinks at him, completely nonplussed. Maybe, for once, he’s thought of something before she has.

Draco continues, “Now, if I were really some secret double-agent or whatever you seem to think is going on,” he shoots a pointed look at Weasley, who rolls his eyes, “would I have brought that up?”

Silence, for a moment. A seagull calls, screeching and obnoxious.

“I believe him,” Potter announces, flabbergasting everyone, Draco included. “He’s shit at the secret agent thing, remember?” he says to Weasley, who’s making sputtering noises. 

Draco is ready to object- he hadn’t been that awful at it, had he?- but instead his mind conjures up fearful wanderings through towering piles of other people’s secrets, shakily-written letters from his mother alternately begging for updates and telling him not to worry, that she loved him very much and knew he would succeed, a cool midnight breeze through tower windows and Dumbledore’s face frozen forever in eternal surprise and betrayal, lines of fire up and down his torso and blood on bathroom floor tiles, so much blood…

Okay. Yes. He had been that bad at it. 

He blinks. Everything looks slightly different, perspective all skewed, and Draco realizes that he’s on his hands and knees, gasping into the wet sand. The other three are looking down at him, gazes fearful and suspicious and awkward all at once. 

Granger steps forward. “Draco, are you-”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly, dusting off his trousers as he stands. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” His knees are shaking, threatening to buckle again, but he’s  _ fine _ . 

“The hell you are,” Weasley says, somehow even angrier than he was earlier, dark eyes on fire under his mop of red hair. “You just had a fit or something-”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Draco insists. “Honestly, Weasley, someone might think you cared.”

“Enough!” Potter cuts in, bringing the argument to a halt. “Malfoy. Do you have another idea? If not, keep your trap shut.”

Draco scrambles to gather his thoughts. His hands are still shaking, so he crosses his arms. “Keep it simple,” he says after a brief pause. “The simpler the plan, the fewer things that can go wrong. You have an invisibility cloak, right? How good is it against revealing spells?”

The Trio trade glances. “Pretty good,” Potter says finally.

_ More _ secrets? Merlin. Draco can hardly keep up with what he does and doesn’t know. “Fine. You can hide under that, possibly Griphook too, since he’s small.” He’s warming to his theme, now. “Granger, can you cast a reliable Disillusionment charm?”

“Of course I can,” she replies immediately, as though offended. Good.

“You, Weasley, and I can use those, then. We can all slip in unnoticed, then I can drop my charm once I’m close enough to a goblin that can take us to the vault. Get in, get out, hopefully with no one the wiser.”

Granger sniffs. “Wouldn’t it be better to use a Notice-Me-Not spell? It’s more subtle, and less likely to draw notice than if a wanted man suddenly appeared in the middle of the lobby.”

Draco can’t think of a good argument against her, so he says nothing.

“You can’t be serious,” Weasley interjects, exasperated. Granger only shrugs, so he rounds on Potter. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

Potter ruffles the back of his hair. “It’s worth considering, at least.”

Weasley groans, and throws down the rock he’d been about to throw. “Fine. Right. Whatever.” He stomps towards the cottage, pauses when he reaches Draco. “You shouldn’t be coming at all,” he tells him with a final glare, then disappears behind a dune, his back to them all.

⇄

The boy Draco had been in the past hadn’t expected to have a seventh year at Hogwarts. He’d imagined it spent instead on glamorous missions full of secrets only he was privy to. His sixteen-year-old self could only conjure up the vaguest notions of glory, returning home on a cloud of victory after a successful mission. He never bothered to imagine what said success entailed, or what would happen after.

Needless to say, it didn’t go the way he expected.

He was safe, at least. Or, he was supposed to be safe, and yet he lived every day as though every choice would topple him over a wire-thin ledge, always glancing over his shoulder, suspicious of everyone he interacted with. His roams through the halls of Hogwarts were lonelier than ever. He wasn’t loved. He wasn’t showered with accolades. He was either feared, or downright hated, and this time, no one bothered to hide how they felt. Even Crabbe and Goyle, his staunch cronies for almost as long as he could remember, acted like he was barely worth their notice.

But he was safe, technically. He was never subjected to one of the Carrows’ detentions, the nights that left less lucky students hollow-eyed and wincing. He didn’t disappear like Neville Longbottom, like the Weasley girl, like so many others. The letters from his mother were less obviously desperate. 

No one ever stole him off the Hogwarts Express, and sent him to the basement of a hijacked mansion to be tortured for months on end.

⇄

Luna leaves a few days later, early in the morning, while almost everyone else is still asleep. Her father arrives at the cottage a little after 3 am, lurking at the back door and refusing to come inside, even after Fleur offers him a cup of tea. He almost collapses when he sees his daughter, wrapping her in a hug so tight that her eyes bug out even more than normal. 

“Get your things,” he whispers as he releases her. “I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

Luna frowns. “Dad-”

“Don’t wake the others, I don’t want to bother them. You can leave a note. Hurry now, we don’t have much time.”

Luna takes a few steps back. “Dad, I can’t go with you.”

Draco watches as they have what would be, for any other family, a screaming match, but for them is just a pointedly polite discussion. Luna wants to go back to Hogwarts; Mr. Lovegood thinks that’s the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. 

Privately, Draco agrees.

“They’re torturing students, Dad,” Luna insists. Draco’s stomach drops, a too-familiar sensation. “I have to do something, I have to help. Neville’s there too-”

“You’ll get caught again!” her father hisses. “They’ll catch you, and they’ll take you back to You-Know-Who, and this time you won’t be as lucky!” He looks ready to cry, poor man. “I can’t do this again,” he confesses, voice and eyes raw with emotion. Fleur has long since gone back to bed, to offer some semblance of privacy, but Draco stays.

Lucky, ha. What a ridiculous word.

“Neville knows a place to hide,” Luna continues, as if she was never interrupted. “A secret room in the castle, somewhere they can’t get me.”

But they can, Draco knows. They just have to ask in the right way. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” Luna continues. “But I have to. I think I love him,” she confesses in a small voice.

She wins, eventually, battering down her father’s defenses calmly and methodically, with the confidence of one who is utterly sure that they’re right. Draco thinks that this side places far too much importance on love. In his experience, love only means dying for someone, and what’s the wisdom in that?

Eventually her father gives in and disapparates. Luna just stands there for a moment, pale hair almost white against the dark, staring at the place where her father just stood. Abruptly, she turns, and peers at Draco with her luminous, too-knowing eyes. "Yes?"

Startled, Draco blurts out, "He can't possibly be worth it."

Luna only shrugs. "I don't know that he will be. But either way, I have to be there. I have to help."

Draco says nothing. Luna blinks once, twice, and disappears with a sharp  _ crack _ that echoes through the night, sharp and lonely.

That leaves Draco, alone with the night. Or so he assumes.

He retreats back to the sitting room and goes to close the door behind him, but a flash of color makes him pause. Weasley is at the top of the stairs, disheveled hair stark in the beam of weak moonlight falling through the open door. His eyes are fixed directly on Draco, gleaming with- with  _ something _ . Curiosity, perhaps. Accusation, more likely. 

Weasley hasn’t spoken to him since their argument on the beach. He has absolutely no reason to be looking at Draco like that.

Like he’s owed information that he isn’t getting.

⇄⇄⇄


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Wednesday, another chapter! Hopefully I'm able to provide you with a few minutes' respite from *gestures vaguely at everything*
> 
> Love watching my existence and rights being gambled on an international stage, don't you???

⇄⇄⇄

The Trio don’t “consider” his plan so much as “try to figure out how to avoid doing what he told them at all costs”. Draco mostly stays silent as he listens to them argue it out, sitting a little removed from their huddle. Days are wasted in this manner, and the wait makes Draco chafe more and more. The Mark on his arm has been utterly devoid of feeling since the night his parents died, and he’s taken to scratching at it whenever he’s feeling particularly impatient.

Bill and Fleur tiptoe around them, not getting directly involved but making it clear they think the final plan, no matter what they come up with, will surely be foolhardy and doomed to fail. Even so, Bill gives all the information he has on Gringotts’ security system, which is a lot. A _lot._ There is _so much security_. Draco almost regrets his choice to join them, until he looks down at the empty eyes of the skull etched on his forearm, and his resolve returns.

And then there is Dobby, orbiting around them all, hardly seen except at mealtimes. Bill offers a few times to escort him back to Hogwarts or wherever else he’d like to go, but the house elf refuses to leave until Potter does. The difference between his deference to Potter and the behavior of the Malfoy house elves is astonishing. The various elves he’d grown up with had always been fearful, polite, and quick to obey, but there was a distinct lack of affection and respect that Draco had never known was missing. It makes him wonder how many of them are still trapped at the Manor.

But no. If the Order wouldn’t launch a rescue mission for his parents, they certainly won’t brave the same dangers just so Draco can give a few elves some clothes. He isn’t under any illusion that their side value elf lives any more than he had. Present company excluded, of course.

There is one thing he can do, though. The question is, whether he can swallow his pride long enough to do it intentionally. 

Dobby isn’t _rude_ to Draco, exactly. _Brusque_ is probably a better word. They interact as little as they possibly can, each doing their best to avoid the other, so Draco’s entry into the kitchen is an intrusion of the highest degree. 

Dobby eyes him warily as he chops onions and chilies for what will, hopefully, become a lamb curry. His recipes have gotten much more inventive than Draco remembers. He briefly considers the wisdom of confronting an angry elf with a sharp knife covered in chili seeds, but if he doesn’t do this now, he probably won’t be able to summon the courage again. 

“You is wanting something.” Dobby breaks the awkward silence with a flat voice, looking back down at his chopping.

“No. Well, yes, but- that is-” Bugger. Draco had been so focused on getting himself to this moment that he completely neglected to think of anything to say once he got here. “I wanted to say- I know it won’t change anything- but I…”

Draco sighs, puts on his big boy trousers, and spits it out. 

“The way my family treated you- the way _I_ treated you- was wrong. There’s no excuse. I know I can’t make up for what we did, but I wanted you to know that I am sorry.”

Draco must be nearly three feet taller than Dobby, but he suddenly feels small under the gaze of those bulging, unblinking eyes. Dobby turns and goes back to his chopping, but the feeling doesn’t go away. The elf lets Draco sweat for several minutes.

“Dobby is thanking you for your words,” he says eventually, cautiously, “but forgiveness is not happening yet. Dobby is not ready.”

For a moment, the old offended pride rises in Draco’s throat like the burn of a raw pepper, but he swallows it down with some difficulty, reminding himself that he has no right to expect better. 

“Of course,” he murmurs. “I understand.”

The tension in the air is still as thick as the smell of onions. Draco thought his apology would do something to dissipate it, but he should really stop being surprised when he guesses wrong. 

“Is there anything I can help with?” he asks, not really expecting an answer. But he is surprised, once again, when Dobby gives a short nod and points to a bowl of freshly-scrubbed potatoes, brown skins still a little damp, peeler already lying next to them on the worn wooden counter.

Draco stares at the peeler for a moment, not entirely sure what to do with it, but he refuses to ask for help. It can’t be that hard to figure out, surely. He sets the sharp end of the blade against the rough skin and pushes gently, and is gratified to see a thin slice of potato skin slough away.

They work together, unlikely pair that they are, in total but not completely hostile silence, which is about the best that anyone could hope for. Draco doesn’t stop until all the potatoes in the bowl are peeled, his back and fingers are aching, and the kitchen is sweltering with the combined heat of the range and oven. 

Merlin. He had no idea that simple kitchen tasks were so much _work_. 

Dobby gives the potatoes one approving nod, a gift almost as good as forgiveness, and lets Draco wander out to the back garden, to cool off in the sea breeze. 

Instead, he is slammed against the wall by a hard and freckled forearm. 

“What are you playing at?” Weasley hisses, angry face startlingly close to his own.

“Get off me, you nutter!” Draco yelps, and tries to push Weasley off. He doesn’t budge. Draco’s heart, already doing double time, beats even faster. “What’s _wrong_ with you?”

“You’re up to something, I know it. Moping around, making nice with goblins and house elves, pretending you’ve _gone good_ , but I can see through your bullshit even when no one else can.”

“I’m not up to a damn thing, Weasleby,” Draco bites back, the old nickname slipping out before he can stop it. “Believe it or not, my choices have nothing to do with you. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“You do, though. You really do,” Weasley insists, pushing further, digging Draco’s spine deeper into the rough wall. “The Malfoy I know would never be caught doing manual labor, much less taking orders from his old house elf. The Malfoy I know is just waiting to stab us in the back.”

“The Malfoy you _knew_ was pathetic,” Draco spits back, “and needed a massive reality check. Which I got, when my parents were _murdered_ because of _my_ mistakes.”

The angry red stains on Weasley’s cheeks abruptly fade to paper paleness. 

“I didn’t- I mean- that’s not what I- ”

But Draco recognizes that wide-eyed look, and no, absolutely not, he will have _none_ of it. He rolls his eyes. “Don’t give me pity now, Weasley. I think I preferred it when you were trying to hurt me.” 

Weasley frowns, and the arm pinning Draco’s chest shifts, Weasley’s fingers just barely brushing his collarbone. “You hurt me too, you know,” he says.

“Yeah.” Draco licks his lips. “Yeah, I did.” 

Weasley leans closer. “So where’s my apology?”

Weasley is taller than him. Draco cleared six feet when he was fourteen, but Weasley still has a few inches on him. Right now, Draco is headily aware of every one of those inches. 

Weasley’s eyes are brown. 

This has always bothered Draco- they should be blue, he thinks, a shade properly befitting a redhead. Something closer to his own slate grey. But no, they are dark and warm, like peat. Often lit on fire when turned in his direction, hot and dangerous. But also inviting, somehow, like the irrational urge to stick his hand into crackling flames.

“I’m sorry,” Draco whispers. 

Weasley drops his arm and takes several steps back, and Draco has to actively stop himself from swaying back into him. Weasley just stares at him for a long moment, stares him down with those eyes. Draco has had quite enough of being examined today, it is so much worse than shouted accusations...

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Weasley mumbles, shamefaced, and walks away.

Draco’s heart is still beating too fast.

⇄

Draco remembers clearly the day he realized he preferred boys. Which, really, isn’t such a horrible thing among purebloods, although he would marry, of course, and procreate, and pass on the Malfoy name. Draco had been reconciled to that future since before he knew what sex was. Marriages were political strategies, as was the bearing of children, and he fully intended to do his part. 

His fifteen-year-old body had other ideas. 

In retrospect, it was- should have been- nothing. Just a casual laugh echoing through the train platform, a smear of dirt on a freckled nose, an arm thrown over Potter’s shoulders in easy camaraderie that somehow made Weasley’s shoulders look broader. (Not unlike the day he met Harry Potter, when Draco decided he hated the Savior of the Wizarding World forever, for having won someone’s affections without even trying.) 

“Evening Weaselby,” Draco said not an hour later, crammed into the Prefect’s carriage with seven other bodies and knowing full well he was loud enough to be heard by all of them. “Have a good holiday? Heard that shack you call a home finally got a roof. You must be so excited.” 

Weasley’s face flushed so quickly, his freckles disappeared. How oddly delightful. “Get stuffed, Malfoy.”

“Oh, what a comeback,” Draco drawled. “I’m blinded by your wit.” His belly was alight with the electricity that came with a fight, with the knowledge that everyone in the room was looking at him.

“Get fucked, then,” Weasley retorted, shrugging Granger’s warning hand from his shoulder. “Go back to Crabbe and Goyle, I’m sure you like being double teamed anyway.”

Then Draco was the one with cheeks on fire. “How crude. Exactly the kind of thing I’d expect from someone with your...upbringing.” 

Whatever arbitrary line Weasley had drawn in his head, Draco had apparently stomped all over it. He lunged for Draco, hand half-raised, only to be stopped by a Hufflepuff -McMillan, or something-, and Granger, whose slim fingers wrapped around Weasley’s wrist. Draco’s hand settled on his wand. 

“Weasley! Malfoy!” a voice barked. The Head Boy- some Ravenclaw, Draco couldn’t have even begun to guess his name- strode into the carriage. “Stop this at once. Brawling like Muggles is no fit behavior for Prefects. Perhaps I need to speak to Professor Dumbledore about rethinking his choices for this post?”

“There’s nothing wrong with how Muggles fight,” Weasley announced mutinously, but turned his back to Draco. Granger whispered something in his ear, too softly for Draco to eavesdrop.

Malfoys, Draco had been told time and again, were never defeated, but they did occasionally make strategic retreats. This was only one of those, a rest before the next battle. Still, as Draco strode from the Prefect’s carriage, nose resolutely in the air, his gut was heavy with something not quite like shame. Something that, surely, was too good to be allowed.

In pureblood society, discretion was the only absolute commandment. All other sins were- eventually- forgivable.

Wanting to snog Weasley was seriously pushing it, though. 

⇄⇄⇄


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK TRUMP 2020 MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!
> 
> ("Irreplaceable" by Beyoncé blasting on speakers in the distance)
> 
> Goddamn, nothing like watching your country being snatched from the jaws of white supremacy and fascism to give you a major fucking rush. Feeling elated and feral today so here, have the next chapter a few hours early. Imma crush you for a second then bring ya right back up again bay-bee ;)

⇄⇄⇄

“Okay,” Potter says as he sits in front of Draco, apropos of absolutely nothing. “Let’s say we go with your plan. How _exactly_ are you going to gain access to the vault?”

Draco looks up from the copy of the _Daily Prophet_ he borrowed from Bill, and raises one eyebrow. “Go up to one of the goblins and ask to be let into my vault, obviously.”

“Do you really think they’ll allow you access?” Granger pipes up from over Potter’s shoulder. Draco wishes she and Weasley would sit down too; the way they’re looming over Potter reminds him too much of Crabbe and Goyle.

_Possibly not_ , he thinks. “Yes,” he says, “why wouldn’t they? There hasn’t been any mention of me or my parents in this,” he rustles the newspaper, “so it’s possible that they’re covering up the deaths, and your brother says no one in the Order has seen my face on any wanted posters.”

“That’ll change, though,” Weasley points out. “You’re not a threat at the moment. You-Know-Who might even believe you’re dead. But if word gets around that you’ve taken something out of this vault, especially if one of us is seen as well, he’ll know for sure that you’ve betrayed him.”

“Speaking of,” Draco replies, laying the newspaper down entirely. “What exactly are we going in there to steal?”

The Trio immediately start shifting around and looking uncomfortable, as he knew they would. It only piques his curiosity further. 

“I’m going to figure it out eventually,” he reminds them.

They have a quick conversation in front of him without saying a word, which is infuriating. He’s had to put up with it for days. The worst part is, they don’t even seem to know they do it. Potter will raise an eyebrow, and Weasley will smirk in answer; Granger will pass Weasley the ketchup at breakfast without being asked; Granger and Weasley will _always_ notice when Potter’s head hurts, no matter how he tries to hide it. And every time, Draco is hit with a tidal wave of envy- for every mundane action, all the million little ways they take care of each other, that add up to something bigger than the scope of his imagining. Draco is no stranger to jealousy, but he’s never in his life been so wildly desperate for something that was never his. 

It’s not the _worst_ thing he’s ever felt, but it’s probably in the top five. 

The Trio seem to wrap up their silent argument; Potter looks bemused, Granger amused, and Weasley...defensive? Draco clasps his forearm to keep from scratching at it while he waits for someone to _say something_. 

Granger turns to him. “All right,” she says, “Do you know what a Horcrux is?”

“Did I grow up in a house full of books on Dark Magic? Of course I know what a Horcrux is, I’m not an idiot,” Draco retorts. “I’d be top in our year if it wasn’t for you.”

Ugh. Saying that out loud makes him nauseous. Maybe he’ll vomit in Granger’s face, which has gone all smug at his admission. 

Then it clicks. 

Draco leaps to his feet. “Wait. You’re saying…” He looks at each of them in turn, almost daring them to contradict his realization. 

“Yes,” Potter answers wearily.

“And that’s how he-”

“Yes.”

Fuck. Draco can hear his pulse thundering in his ears. 

“How many?” he asks weakly.

“We think seven total,” Granger answers, “but three have been destroyed already.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. 

This isn’t what he signed up for. 

He thought there would be a weapon, something to be paired with the Sword of Gryffindor maybe, or a book containing instructions for a really powerful spell. If he’d had any idea of the full picture, how much might be required of him…

“That’s why we need the Sword, and why we can’t give it to Griphook when we break into Gringotts,” Weasley adds. “Not much can destroy a Horcrux, but it can.”

Draco laughs, the sound foreign and removed. “How did you even _get_ the Sword?” 

Potter and Weasley have yet another silent exchange before Potter says, “It’s a really long story.”

Draco snorts. Oh, he’s sure it is. He can feel everything they’re not telling him like a wall between them, a constant reminder that he’s only trusted with so much, a void he’ll never be able to cross. 

Merlin. He’s fallen into the same old patterns without realizing it, hanging all of his hopes on one defining act, relying on one moment to launch him into something better, other, than what he is. But he was wrong then, and he’s wrong now. 

Change, _real_ change, is made through a series of choices, one after the other like planks in a bridge spanning a deadly river. Change is _built_ , over time and despite difficulty, and demands genuine, sustained effort in the face of despair. Draco knows himself well enough now, too well to keep lying to himself. He doesn’t have that kind of courage- never has, and never will. 

“I don’t think I can do this,” he hears himself say.

“Excuse me?” Weasley’s eyes are fixed on his face, expression hard as flint.

“I can’t- these are pieces of his _soul_ , you understand? Do you know- to have contact with one of them- the damage it can do?” His voice is climbing higher, his tone more and more hysterical, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. “Horcruxes defend themselves. And one of _his_ \- it’ll- it’ll kill you before you can kill it!”

“We know!” Weasley shouts. “We lived with one for _months_ before we figured out how to destroy it, and it was horrible, and it almost ripped us apart!”

Potter goes pale and Granger looks close to tears, but Draco barely notices. His eyes fix themselves on Weasley’s face, which is red and getting redder. 

“I can’t-” he confesses, “I can’t go near- I won’t be able to fight it-”

“Well, we managed,” Weasley spits. “And we’ll manage again if we have to, no matter what it takes, because we actually _care_.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco sees Potter and Granger edging out of the room. Neither of them look surprised at what’s taking place. How wonderful, to be so well understood. No one is surprised that Draco has failed, yet again. 

Weasley takes a step toward him, and Draco thinks for a feverish moment that he’s going to get slammed against another wall, but Weasley halts immediately and only yanks a hand through his own hair. “I can’t believe I thought- you know what? I shouldn’t be surprised. You-” his voice cracks, “you can do whatever you want, I don’t care. Crawl back in your hole like you always do, you _fucking coward_.”

Draco feels the word like a slap to the face. Just a year ago, he would’ve dealt a slap in return. 

He’s not who he was a year ago. But he’s still not good enough.

“I can’t go with you to Gringotts. I can’t go near him- not again…”

His words hang in the air. He has no idea how to finish.

Disgust rises in Weasley’s eyes. “Fine. Be that way,” he says, and stomps off after his friends. Walking away from him, yet again, a nightmare loop Draco can’t seem to escape.

⇄

The garden has become a kind of refuge. Fleur doesn’t seem to mind how much time he spends there, as long as he doesn’t disturb any of the plants; in fact, she seems almost pleased that someone finally appreciates her handiwork. And for certain, none of _them_ want to see him at the moment. It’s best for him to remain out of the way.

The flower beds are haphazardly arranged and spill into each other, a riot of variegated greens vying for sunlight and fresh water. The weather grows warmer day by day, and the Spanish Eyes have come into full bloom, creating a patchwork of pale violet against the pebbly grey-brown soil. 

It’s nothing like the gardens of his home, so carefully cultivated and precisely mapped out, every errant twig and bud snipped away like it was never there at all. Architectural, almost, in their design. Not really like nature at all. Nominally, his mother was in charge of their care. In actual practice, however, she’d been beholden to several generations’ worth of tradition. He doesn’t know how she would’ve designed a garden, if given a real chance.

_Malfoys do precisely as they wish, and the world follows suit_. Merlin, who did they think they were kidding?

Daytime in the garden is pleasant and peaceful, but the sunlight isn’t quite strong enough to really warm him through. Nights are better, somehow. Colors are deeper, the earthy smells are stronger. He feels a strange affinity for the Spanish Eyes’ furled up buds, shut tight against the cool evening breeze. 

He’s sitting on the back step, a cup of tea in his hand, when he hears footsteps approach. He doesn’t look up, but the footsteps don’t backtrack and fade away into the distance.

Instead, Weasley sits down next to him. For a few minutes, silence stretches out before them like the ocean in the distance. 

Then, Weasley speaks. “Hermione said I was too hard on you,” he says. “Harry said I should apologize. Which,” he laughs softly, one short _ha_ , “I don’t think he’s ever apologized in his life, the bloody hypocrite. But they’re right- I’m being a hypocrite too.”

Draco can’t wrap his mind around the words for a moment. It’s almost like Weasley is implying that Potter and Granger aren’t angry with him after all, so he must have heard incorrectly. 

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s my fault,” Weasley answers quietly. “I didn’t tell the truth. Not all of it.”

More silence. Draco adds silence to the already expansive list of things he hates. This list has undergone major revision lately, but silence is definitely on it. 

They’re sitting close enough that their arms occasionally brush. Draco keeps his sleeves long and firmly buttoned at the wrist, but Weasley has taken to rolling his sleeves up as the weather warms. Draco stares at his forearms, freckles and downy hairs gone golden in the yellow light of the kitchen doorway, criss-crossed with thin raised scars.

He reacts without thinking- really, the sides of himself Weasley brings out are truly worrying- and grabs Weasley’s arm, shoving the sleeve up his bicep so he can see the web of scars more fully.

Remarkable, how something can look so delicate yet so painful at the same time. Draco traces a long red line- angry, like it still hurts even after all this time- and feels the sting of bile in the back of his throat. 

Weasley’s arm jerks under his touch, and Draco snatches his hand back. “Sorry,” he says, but he can’t help it, he has to ask, “How did it happen?” 

He feels…

He doesn’t want to name what he feels. 

“Fifth year,” Weasley answers gruffly. “Department of Mysteries.”

Draco swallows. His father was there. That was the night he got arrested, the night Draco always told himself was the beginning of every awful thing that happened afterwards. 

But maybe the trouble really began when his father decided that he didn’t have a problem killing teenagers, if they stood between him and what he wanted. Or maybe it began long before that, even, when his family decided they were better than everyone else because of accidents of birth and circumstance..

Draco lays a hand on his own chest, where the marks of Potter’s _Sectusempra_ still linger. They all have scars, now, he supposes. Potter hides under his fringe, while Draco and Granger hide behind layers of clothing. Not Weasley, though. He wears his scars in the open, not proudly, but casually. He accepts them like they are just another facet of his appearance, no more notable than his freckles or ginger hair. 

Like the massive scar that runs along his collarbone and claws briefly up his neck, before disappearing beneath his shirt. This one is not nearly so delicate as the ones on his arms, but instead is dark violet like a bruise, and knotted-looking, more akin to frayed rope than human skin. 

“And that one?” Draco asks.

Weasley grimaces. “Yeah. That’s the story.”

Draco huffs. “If you’re not going to say what you mean-”

“I’m getting there, all right?” Weasley tugs at his hair again. Draco wonders absently who started the habit first- him or Potter. “This isn’t easy for me.”

“Why?”

“I was injured.” Weasley’s voice has gone flat, and Draco shuts his mouth, realizing the story has begun. “We’d chased down a Horcrux at the Ministry, and when we escaped, I Splinched myself and left part of my shoulder behind.”

“You went to the Ministry?!” Draco nearly shrieks. “You went _inside_?!”

Weasley looks at him like _he’s_ the crazy one. “We had to get the Horcrux, didn’t we?”

Merlin, Salazar, and all the Founders. He knew the Trio were mad, but he had no idea just how much they’d collectively lost their rockers. 

“Are you going to let me explain, or not?” Weasley asks, looking churlish.

“By all means,” Draco responds, waving a hand. “Please, do tell me more of your remarkably ill-advised history.”

Weasley scowls, but continues, doggedly. “We escaped, but I was injured, and we needed to figure out how to destroy the Horcrux. Only, we couldn’t. Dumbledore had tried to leave us the Sword in his will, but he failed, and the spells we knew didn’t work.”

“Well, of course not,” Draco interrupts. “According to _Secrets of the Darkest Art-_ ”

Weasley groans. “Really? It’s like talking to another Hermione.”

Draco’s mouth snaps shut.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Weasley continues, “we didn’t want to let it out of our sight, in case- well, we knew it was just an object- but we thought it might, I dunno, escape somehow. So we took to wearing it in turns.”

Draco only just manages to keep his comments to himself. There’s something in Weasley’s face now- something in the look of his eyes, a shadow hanging behind his irises- that says Weasley is already well aware of just how bad an idea that was. 

“It- it was-” Weasley’s voice fails him, and he has to pause for a few moments to breathe, low and slow. “Well. I’m sure you can guess. It affected all of us, but- but I was the worst. I was hungry, and in pain _all the time_ , and just...useless. And mean. Whenever I would wear the damn thing, I was awful. And I couldn’t do much, with my arm the way it was, and Harry and Hermione would disappear together, for _hours_ , and I thought- I thought they were-” he cuts himself off, jumping to his feet and beginning to pace. “I thought they were cutting me out. Not just from the mission, but from what we had together. From _us_.”

Draco can feel his own heart constricting, like Weasley is holding it in his fist. He’d had his suspicions, his own theories about just how close the three of them were, but hearing them confirmed doesn’t make him feel clever, only sad. Not just for himself, mourning for everything he can’t have, but for the boy in front of him, the one baring his worst shame to his worst enemy in the name of honesty. 

“I left them. In the middle of the night, because of some stupid fight that I’d started.” Weasley forces the words out of his throat like meat through a grinder, syllables raw and bloody. “I left, how could I do that? I was jealous, and I abandoned them for it, I _left_ -” his fist strikes, suddenly, against the cottage wall with the kind of _thunk_ that bruises bone. 

Draco takes a step forward. “Ron-”

“No.” Ron tosses his head from side to side like a wounded animal- the kind you’re always told not to approach, because they bite. 

Draco approaches anyway, because after all that’s happened, another bite is nothing. “Ron-” 

“You were right all along. You _should_ look down on me, despise me. Doesn’t get much more despicable than abandoning your friends.”

“I don’t despise you.” Draco raises his voice, hoping it pierces through that hopelessly thick skull. “Or hate you, even.”

Ron turns away from the wall, and his fist follows, but Draco catches it easily. Like Ron isn’t really trying, like he isn’t swinging at Draco at all, but at his own demons, only to find that those fights can’t be won with a punch. Draco knows the feeling.

“I’m serious,” he maintains, his words like a heel dug into the dirt, firmly planted. “Actually, I think I like you better, now that I know what you did. You can be nearly as bad as Saint Potter, you realize.”

It’s another moment of horrible clarity, another confirmation of something he, somehow, already knew. Potter might be a saint, and even Granger, sometimes, but not Ron. Ron isn’t nice, and half the time he isn’t even kind. But he is so, so _good_ , even when he can’t see it in himself. He _decides_ to be good, even when it doesn’t come naturally. It’s something Draco is afraid he might never understand: how someone who sees the world the same way he does can still make such radically different choices. 

Ron’s face is wet. Draco steps closer, wipes his face with the cuff of his sleeve. “You came back, though. You always come back.”

Ron’s forehead wrinkles. “How would you know?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” He doesn’t let go of Ron’s hand. Testing. Seeing what he can get away with, the buttery kitchen light an accomplice to his thievery. “And everyone was always watching you three back at Hogwarts.” _I was always watching_. “All the times you fought. All the times you made up. Anyone with half a brain could see that you would never abandon them, not for long.”

He’s revealing far too much of himself. But he can feel Ron’s breath brush across his cheek with every quiet exhalation, which is far more compelling than any so-called wisdom passed down from his ancestors. Ron brings out something in him that begs- no, _demands_ \- to be known, and damn the consequences.

If only he could hang onto that feeling when Ron eventually leaves.

“What happened after?” Draco asks quietly. “When you came back?”

Ron wipes his nose and shrugs. “Harry found the Sword- he was led to it, some contingency plan of Dumbledore’s, probably. Then he- he helped me destroy the Horcrux. And, well, we got captured not long after. You know the rest.” 

Draco rather thinks he doesn’t, but he refrains for now. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks instead.

Ron crosses his arms and scowls. “I dunno, turning over a new leaf? I’m trying to be less of an arse these days.” He flashes Draco a smirk, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Good luck with that,” Draco says, and shoves lightly at Ron’s shoulder.

“Well, you would know,” Ron quips back, with an answering shove. It’s just a shade too rough to be wholly teasing, but it still makes Draco light up inside, because apparently he’s given up on trying not to be utterly pathetic. 

This friendly ribbing doesn’t feel quite natural, exactly, but it sure feels like _something_.

⇄

His parents’ story didn’t start with love. Their marriage was arranged, not chosen. It was a negotiation- one that didn’t cease when the deal was struck and the vows were made, but merely transferred to the new couple, as they endeavored day by day to adjust themselves to their new circumstances. Until they made it work, as Malfoys were supposed to be so good at doing. 

In the past, Draco had found himself hoping that, one day, he’d miraculously stumble into something like what his parents had: not-quite-accidental love, quiet but strong, built by years rather than transient passion. Something that requires sacrifice to become lasting. That sounds nice. 

Well. 

A _little_ passion wouldn’t be so bad, surely?

⇄⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Draco Malfoy: has one (1) semi-successful interaction with Ronald Weasley
> 
> Draco Malfoy: immediately starts planning his wedding


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all! Another Wednesday, another chapter! This is the last chapter before things FINALLY start to get action-y.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

⇄⇄⇄

The next morning, Draco barges into Griphook’s room before he loses his nerve again. The Trio are gathered there as well, like he knew they would be, and four sets of eyes fix upon him as he enters. 

“I didn’t mean what I said the other night,” he says in a rush. “If you still want me, I’ll come with you to Gringotts.”

Potter throws a significant look at Ron- weird, that- before turning to Draco with one eyebrow raised. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Draco swallows, and nods. “Yes.”

“Even if you’re the one who has to grab the Horcrux?”

“I- yes.”

“Even though you might get caught?”

“I’d be a lot less likely to get caught if you’d let me have a wand during the mission.”

Draco fully expects Potter to yell, “Absolutely not!” and eject him from the room. Instead, an odd gleam grows in his eyes. It makes Draco nervous.

“Okay,” Potter says, and everyone stares at him in shock. He pulls Draco’s wand from his trouser pocket and hands it to Draco. “Here you go,” he says, suspiciously encouraging. “Give it a try.”

Draco grabs the wand before Potter can change his mind. His grip settles automatically, and one of the ever-present knots in his gut unclenches at the feel of it in his hand again. 

“Cast a spell, go on,” Potter says.

Draco’s grip tightens. “Why?”

It’s not like he didn’t struggle the last time they saw him try to work magic, but at least he had the excuse of being afraid and injured. This feels like a setup, and Draco doesn’t feel like being their joke of the day. 

Potter shrugs. “Well, all right, if you really want to pass up the chance to have a go at me-”

Draco points his wand at Potter’s face and concentrates as hard as he can on the image of Potter’s eyebrows turning Slytherin green, and-

-and, nothing. 

Nothing happens. At all.

Draco stares at his wand in growing horror. He tries a Jelly-Legs Jinx, _Immobulus_ , even a simple _Expelliarmus_ , but nothing. His wand is as dead and unfeeling as an ordinary hunk of wood. No spark inside it at all, not the feeblest flicker. 

Potter swipes his wand before he knows what’s happened, points it at the ceiling, and watches placidly as a fountain of red sparks shoots from the tip. 

“Merlin,” Granger breathes, “Ollivander was right.”

“Of course he was,” Potter replies, smug with triumph, as if Draco’s wand is a puzzle he’s just solved. “He made the thing.”

Draco is frozen to the spot. “What did you do.”

Potter turns back to him. “Your wand’s allegiance started to shift, that night at the Manor when I grabbed it out of your hand, or maybe even earlier, and I’m guessing the shift is complete. It’s mine now.”

Draco’s body unfreezes. He lunges, but Ron is suddenly there, wrapping tightly around him and pinning his arms to his side. “Really, Harry?” he groans, exasperated. “Will you two- Merlin, Draco, calm _down-_ ” 

“No!” Draco shouts, and fights against his bonds as hard as he can. “Give it back! You fucking thief, give it BACK!”

“HEY!”

Everyone freezes, Draco included. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Granger get that loud before.

“You’re acting like utter children,” she sniffs. “Harry, quit baiting Draco. And _you_ -” Draco doesn’t flinch under the sharpness of her glare, but it’s a near thing- “Harry didn’t do it on purpose. We didn’t even know about wand allegiances until after the fight at the Manor. His wand broke, and he’s in more danger than any of us, so he needs yours. I’m sure you can win your wand back eventually, but for now, you’ll just have to make do without.”

Draco opens his mouth to yell some more until they give him his wand back, it’s fucking _his, who do they think they are-_

But Ron leans down and quietly pleads, “Look, we can’t keep doing this, we can’t keep flying at each other all the time. It’s only temporary. Please, just for now.”

It shouldn’t work. 

It does.

Draco forces himself to relax, and Ron lets him go. “The second you get a new wand, I want mine back,” he growls.

Potter stares back at him cooly. “Agreed.”

The silence that follows is as heavy as stone.

“Well,” Griphook interjects with a nasty grin. “This will be interesting, won’t it?”

⇄ 

After that, the plan wraps up rather quickly, now that Draco is truly committed. He insists on keeping their strategy as simple as humanly possible, and good thing, too- Potter has a tendency to overcomplicate the details and leave room for everything to go horribly wrong. 

“It’s going to go horribly wrong either way,” Potter points out.

“Then all the more reason to keep the details simple and easy to remember,” Draco replies sweetly.

The evening before they leave finds Draco in the kitchen with Dobby, as has become his habit. Tonight, he’s been assigned to the onions, and is doing his best to dice them into small, even squares. It’s an exercise in patience- he wants to do well, and that means taking his time, admitting his inexperience. Tonight’s dinner is shepherd’s pie, something familiar and comforting that will line their stomachs and help them fall asleep more easily, so they’ll be energized and well-rested for tomorrow. 

Dobby knows his way around a kitchen far better than any of the Malfoys ever gave him credit for.

Draco would never admit this thought out loud, _especially_ not after his last outburst, but when he’s in the kitchen, he’s almost glad he doesn’t have his wand. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with hands-on labor, and there’s something incredibly satisfying about being intimately involved in the preparation of his food. To younger him, dinner appeared on the table like magic, requiring nothing more than the snap of a finger. But Draco knows better, now. He knows what food _means_ , now. 

There’s something to be said for facing your ignorance head-on, Draco muses. It’s humiliating, but somehow freeing at the same time. 

He transfers the (perfectly diced, _thank you_ ) onions into a hot pan at Dobby’s direction. He still jumps a bit at the spitting sizzle, but Dobby always pretends not to notice. Draco can recall dozens of hours in the main drawing room of the Manor, learning hundreds of etiquette rules from a tutor under his mother’s watchful eye. You’d think he’d have understood well before now that manners are not the same thing as being considerate. However, he has to admit that there's a certain poetry to learning cooking and consideration at the same time.

Dobby lays a hand on his arm, and Draco jumps, nearly slicing his fingers off.

Dobby has never touched him before. 

“You is truly going with them tomorrow? To help defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?” Dobby asks, automatically correcting Draco’s slackened grip on the knife.

Draco nods. “Yes. Well. We hope so.” 

He doesn’t know why he always imagined that elves would be cold to the touch, hadn’t even realized the assumption had been there to begin with. Maybe it’s the greenish skin and the fish-like eyes. But no- if anything, Dobby’s touch is unexpectedly warm, like he’s running several degrees hotter than Draco himself. 

“You is doing a very brave thing,” Dobby says. 

Draco can actually feel himself turning red, and he’s suddenly unable to look up from the translucent slivers of onion in front of him. “It’s not like that. He killed my parents. I know they were horrible to you, but...”

“But family is being a strange and special thing. Dobby is understanding you.” Dobby pats his arm once, before turning his attention to the careful seasoning of the minced lamb. 

Then he says, perfectly nonchalant, “It is occurring to Dobby this morning that Mis Bel- that your aunt's knife was being meant for Dobby. You was saving Dobby’s life.”

Draco grimaces, and confesses, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even see the knife; I grabbed it by accident.”

“But you still did,” Dobby insists. “Dobby is being here now because of Draco Malfoy, whether you is meaning that or no.”

Draco has absolutely no idea what to say to that. Perhaps there is nothing to say. 

The elf continues, “Dobby is grateful. And Dobby is ready to forgive Mister Draco, though you is still not being Dobby’s master.”

Draco chokes, and almost smiles. “No, of course not, never.” Then, more subdued, “Thank you.”

“You is becoming a different person than you were,” Dobby replies simply. “You now is being easier to forgive.”

⇄⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, Dobby's syntax is so hard to replicate. Also...it's really really racist??? It reminds me strongly of how writers would make black characters talk in old movies like Gone With the Wind (seriously, house elf behavior aligns so closely with the Uncle Tom caricature that it's eerie). I almost didn't even try but then he wouldn't have come across as Dobby at all, and I REALLY wanted these two to have a few come-to-Jesus moments, so I gave it my best shot. I apologize for any errors or offense. (I also apologize for the delay in posting this comment- it should have been included in an earlier chapter, but I forgot.)
> 
> If you would like to start educating yourself on harmful Black representation in media and how it impacts cultural racial attitudes, there are many resources available on the web, but here are a few:
> 
> https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/popular-and-pervasive-stereotypes-african-americans  
> https://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/links/essays/vcu.htm  
> https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/video/racist-images-and-messages-in-jim-crow-era/  
> https://library.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/data/guides/english/howard_journal_communications.pdf
> 
> We can enjoy the media we consume but it's also important to read critically, and to call out bias when we see it. 
> 
> PS- This is not to suggest that American slavery was Rowling's inspiration for house elves, as I'm sure she was drawing on many different sources from many different cultures/points in history, but certain caricatures of Black people are so pervasive worldwide that they probably had at least some unconscious influence. Also, even unintentional messages still have impact, and we're responsible for the consequences of our actions, intended or otherwise.
> 
> PPS- Sorry, sorry, one more thing then I promise I'll shut up- I am also aware of the anti-Semitic imagery associated with the goblins, which I have also attempted to steer well away from. In my mind, Griphook is the way he is not because he's a goblin, but because he's deeply traumatized and doesn't see the point of negotiating with people that belong to the group that's been oppressing his species for centuries. His faith in humans has quite literally been beaten out of him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could this chapter have...*gasp*...action? Actual plot development??? Say it ain't so!
> 
> AKA Draco finally gets to do something other than sit around in a seaside garden and psychoanalyze himself. Hope you enjoy!

⇄⇄⇄

“Can you do my nose a little shorter?” Ron asks. “I liked the way you did it last time better.”

“This isn’t a vanity project,” Granger responds, a little testily. 

They’re all on edge this morning. Draco stands awkwardly to the side with Bill and Fleur, dressed in the clothes he was wearing when he first arrived at the cottage. One of them must have cast some seriously skilled spellwork- (he suspects Bill; Cursebreakers would go through clothes like mad otherwise) -his shirt and trousers are as fresh and impeccably fitted as the day he first put them on. Draco scratches at the hem of his sleeves. He forgot how uncomfortable his old clothes were, after the worn softness of Ron’s. 

He can’t believe he’s going through with this.

Several more minutes pass until Granger is finally satisfied, and she and Ron turn to face everyone else.

“Wow,” Potter says from somewhere to Draco’s right, though he can’t tell quite where- he and Griphook are already hidden under the Cloak. “I don’t recognize either of you at all.”

Potter’s right. Granger’s dark skin has been changed to a dull olive, her hair has been tamed to close-cropped ringlets, and she’s gained roughly three inches and forty pounds. Ron, on the other hand, is the same height, but his hair has been dulled to roan, his features have broadened, and he’s aged about thirty years. Draco has to admit it, albeit grudgingly, that no one can question Granger’s spellwork. Their disguises are flawless. 

Draco gets a cloak. With a hood. Because disguising himself is the opposite of the plan.  _ His _ plan.

Oh, and he’s wandless. Why did he agree to this, again?

Ron looks at him, with the face that isn’t his face, and asks, “Everyone ready?”

⇄

They Apparate into Knockturn Alley at Ron’s insistence- “Everyone there wears heavy cloaks, we’ll blend right in”- and find Ron’s instinct correct. No one spares three mysterious figures a second glance. Even in crowded and brightly lit Diagon Alley, people slide right by them like water around a boulder, and Draco vows never to underestimate the abilities of a Muggleborn ever again. He hopes Granger’s Notice-Me-Not spell isn’t  _ too _ strong, otherwise the next step is going to be rather difficult.

Then he realizes, between one footfall and the next, that the last time he was here, he was examining a Vanishing Cabinet. He freezes.

“Keep moving,” Ron whispers in his ear, like he’s reading Draco’s mind. “Save the meltdown for later.”

Draco keeps walking. 

Gringotts looms before them like a vulture, giving off the distinct air that it might not be the thing to kill you, but will happily pick you apart to your bones afterwards. It probably takes less than a minute to go through both sets of double doors, but to Draco, one hundred footsteps might as well be one hundred years. He’s never stepped inside, never seen the lobby before. It’s all white marble and high ceiling and light shafting in sheets through enormous windows. It feels as confining as a cell. 

No one looks at them. Their footsteps, magically muffled, make no noise as Draco heads for the nearest goblin. 

Ron’s fingers brush his wrist ever so lightly. “Not that one,” Ron breathes. “Griphook said to talk to the one with the bushy white eyebrows.”

Draco adjusts his trajectory slightly, trying to make it look purposeful. He has to clear his throat before the goblin in question notices him. 

The goblin cocks one eyebrow. “How may I assist you?” he asks, in a surprisingly low, smooth voice.

“I wish to access the Black vault today,” Draco says, and his voice doesn’t waver, thank all the Founders. 

The eyebrow descends into a furrow. “I’m afraid that particular vault has been closed off.”

Draco steels his spine, tries to conjure back a bit of his old self. He pulls his hood back just enough that the goblin can see his face. “On whose authority, may I ask? I am the owner of the majority of the artifacts in the vault, and I gave no such order.”

“Ah.” The goblin dithers, clearly surprised, and pretends to shuffle the papers in front of him. “That is- well. Ms. Bellatrix-”

“-doesn’t have the right to keep me from my legal property,” Draco finishes. His hands are sweating. “Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to retrieve said property, and without any more of these ridiculous excuses.”

The goblin sighs, and his eyebrows visibly wilt. “I suppose- technically- ah. Well. May I see some identification? Your wand will suffice.”

Draco freezes.  _ Fuck _ . They should have seen this coming. If only he could Summon his wand from Harry’s hand, he should have asked Dobby to teach him wandless magic, he should have  _ insisted _ that they give it back-

“Of course,” he murmurs, and reaches into his pocket, playing for time. And-

-his wand is there, as though it had been all along. Draco nearly faints in relief. He’s nudged gently in his lower back. “Idiot,” he hears Griphook murmur.

“Here,” Draco says, and thrusts his wand towards the bushy-browed goblin. The goblin takes his sweet time examining it, and Draco glances around the lobby as furtively as he can. Not a single eye on them. If Granger doesn’t get courted by every department in the Ministry after this hellish fiasco is over, Draco will eat his own socks. 

“I don’t have all day,” he reminds the goblin, who jumps, and hands his wand back.

“Well,” the goblin says, reluctantly. “That appears to be in order. I suppose- follow me, please. I will escort you myself.”

Draco nods shortly, and obeys, the others trailing after him. Draco breathes a sigh of relief. It worked. He can’t believe it. 

They pass by a tall man with dark hair and a full beard on their way to a series of carts perched on a railway. Draco pulls his hood farther forward, but the man sees him anyway, and does a double take. 

“Malfoy?”

Draco meets his eye. “Travers,” he says with a short nod, and continues on as if nothing happened.

They all clamber into a cart, Draco shoved up against Granger, Ron making room for Harry and Griphook in the back while trying to look like the large space next to him is entirely incidental.

“Wait!” Travers calls. “Malfoy- what-”

But it’s too late. The cart is already taking off at breakneck speed. 

Draco could vomit. “He’s a Death Eater,” he calls to Granger. “He’ll raise the alarm. We can’t go out the way we came, they’ll be waiting for us.”

“Why do I always have to be the one who comes up with Plan B?!” Granger wails. 

Draco grips tightly to the cart as they descend, gaining more and more speed. Ahead, the roar of a waterfall grows louder and louder. They’re headed straight for it.

“The Thief’s Downfall!” Griphook’s voice rises above the noise. “Brace yourselves!”

“The wha-” Draco starts to ask, and gets a mouthful of icy-cold water for his trouble. The water beats against his back for a few seconds, with enough force to make his spine bend. A shiver passes through him that has nothing to do with the temperature of the water. He looks up as soon as they’re through- Ron and Granger look like their normal selves, and Potter and Griphook are completely exposed. Potter is gripping the Cloak by one corner, as though it tried to fly away and he just barely caught it.

The bushy-browed goblin’s mouth is agape.

“They’re with me!” Draco cries in a rush. “They didn’t want to be noticed in the street, so they went in disguise, but they’re with me. I authorize their presence!”

The goblin’s eyes narrow, but Draco is still clearly himself. The goblin throws the cart in brake, nearly throwing them all out. 

“We’re here,” the goblin says, smooth voice gone cold. “For the record, Mr. Malfoy, Gringotts frowns on its patrons entering the premises under false pretenses, even for their own protection. I will allow it this once, because you are a high-profile client and can vouch for them, but this is  _ highly _ irregular. It will  _ not  _ happen again. ” 

Draco nods hurriedly. “Understood,” he says, and scrambles out of the cart. The others follow. The goblin gets a good look at Griphook, and gasps.

“Grippy? But- I thought you were-”

“I was,” Griphook interrupts shortly. “It wasn’t pleasant. So you can imagine my motives for being here now.”

The goblin blinks several times. “But- you are- unharmed?”

“No. But I will recover.”

“But I-”

“Really, Nagnok,” Griphook says. “We’re rather in a hurry. We can catch up later.”

“Grippy?” Ron asks, a grin crawling up his cheeks.

“ _ Shut it _ ,” Griphook snaps. 

Nagnok looks like his heart is breaking. Draco sympathizes, but Griphook is right- they really don’t have the time. “Lead on, please,” he says, gesturing to the wide corridor on their right. 

Nagnok shakes himself, and reaches back into the cart, pulling out two sets of what look like rings of large, misshapen keys. He hands one to Griphook. “Clangers,” he says in response to everyone else’s questioning looks. “You’ll see why we need them in a moment.” 

The Clangers are aptly named- the noise is truly awful, amplified by the close walls of the corridor. Draco wants to claw at his ears,  _ demand _ they cease that awful racket,  _ at once _ -

But that is a dragon.

A  _ dragon _ .

That-

Oh, Merlin.

Draco has seen dragons, of course. From a distance. From a spectator’s seat. They were exotic curiosities, a transient danger. Even in the flesh, more myth than reality.

But this is different. For one, the dragon in question is a lot closer. Draco is directly in the line of fire. If it wanted, this dragon could  _ literally  _ burn him to a crisp, and that would be it, no more Draco, no more Malfoys.

And the eyes. Bulging, half-blind, pleading, but somehow still defiant. 

Resigned.

Like Dobby’s. Like his own, lately. Like too many people who have had to learn to live with what they’ve been given. 

Draco keeps his mouth shut, but he can see Granger’s expression out of the corner of his eye.

They all skirt around the edges of the dragon’s girth, prodigious even as it shrinks in reaction to the noise.

“It’s been taught to expect pain when it hears the noise!” Griphook announces with the sick kind of glee that comes with taking your baggage out on others. Draco wants to judge, but knows he can’t. 

“That’s barbaric!” Granger interjects, because she can’t keep her mouth shut, but her indignance does nothing.

They reach the far wall, lined with heavy-looking wooden doors, and Nagnok presses his palm to the center of one entrance. The doors melt away, and Draco is aghast.

In person, his inheritance is obscene, gold and silver piled to the ceiling, jewels glittering like evil eyes from every corner, magical artifacts that throb with latent power lining every shelf. How they’re supposed to know what they’re looking for, he has no earthly idea. 

Then the entrance shuts fast behind them, plunging them into darkness and silence. Ron and Granger yelp.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Draco hurries to assure them. “Someone cast  _ Lumos _ .”

Potter’s wand lights up, and Draco breathes a little easier. “Okay,” he says, voice as low and even as he can make it. “What exactly are we trying to retrieve?”

“There!” A beam of light arcing from Granger’s wand falls upon a small golden goblet, almost unassuming compared to the treasures that surround it. Unassuming, that is, were it not for the enamel badger embedded into the surface, betraying the goblet’s true value-

“Accio Cup!” Granger cries, at the same moment that Ron’s foot bumps a verdigris-crusted suit of armor, and Draco doesn’t have time to warn them-

Granger’s Accio does nothing, but Ron leaps out of the way of medieval armor suddenly gone red-hot, knocking into Potter, who bumps into Griphook, who falls backwards into a pile of Galleons that explodes in a shower of scorching gold.

“They’ve cursed all the objects in the vault with Gemino and Flagrante!” Griphook warns, too little too late. “Everything you touch will burn and multiply, but the copies are worthless!”

What little footroom there was, is swiftly being eaten up by the copies of the artifacts they can’t help but nudge against, and the heat from them is enough to beat against Draco’s face. Of course, his ancestors would delight in the idea, any intruder both drowned and burned in a flood of gold.

But he isn’t an intruder, is he? He’s the master of at least half of what’s in here, and though he doesn’t know the exact details of his inheritance, he is both a Black  _ and  _ a Malfoy, and this is his arena.

“Accio!” he cries, and the goblet leaps straight into his hands, but it  _ burns _ , right down the line of knife scars, and it multiplies into twenty as it falls from his grasp and clatters to the ground.

“The Sword!” Potter cries, and there’s a scramble for a bag that is far too small to hold the Sword of Gryffindor but nevertheless produces one, and then Potter is prodding every copy of the goblet he can see, even as the piles of gold rise around them like magma-

“Got it!” he declares triumphantly, Sword aloft, blade speared through one of the goblet handles, but Griphook is there, like Draco knew he would be, and he can’t stop him, isn’t sure he even wants to-

Griphook knocks the Sword hilt out of Potter’s hands, and the goblet goes flying, right to Draco’s outstretched hand-

And this time, when it burns like hellfire, he doesn’t let go.

Griphook slaps his hand against the solid wood doors, crying “Thieves! Help! Thieves!” and the gold swells like a tidal wave and bears them all towards a crowd of Gringotts goblins and Death Eaters, Travers in the lead. Griphook disappears into their ranks even as the rest of them sweep past, borne along the kinetic wave of gold, right towards the open maw of a  _ very  _ pissed off dragon that has just reached its wits end. 

The dragon roars, and blue-hot light builds up in its throat, consuming Draco’s vision and making his eyes burn, before something jerks at his shirt collar, and he’s thrown into the dragon’s scaly side.

“Climb on!” Ron roars above the noise while Granger blasts through the chains around the beast’s ankles, and Draco and Potter scramble onto the dragon’s back just in time-

The dragon roars again and bursts through the stone ceiling like so much tissue paper. Draco ducks his head and hangs on for dear life, tries not to get crushed by falling debris as the dragon tramples through level after level. Finally, they break through to the marble lobby, and the dragon unfurls its enormous wings and launches them through the windows with the shattering of glass that’s all too familiar-

And then there is nothing but open air above them, and endless sky before them, and they are free, Hufflepuff’s goblet held fast in Draco’s fist. 

⇄⇄⇄


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all get this chapter a teensy bit early in celebration of my cat FINALLY pooping on her own after a month of megacolon struggles (yep. megacolon. I ain't making that up. 2020 is LITERALLY throwing shit at me now)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy! Thoughts and prayers for the continued health of my cat's butt!

⇄⇄⇄

The dragon flies as fast as the wind, its wings flaring to catch vents of rising hot air, coasting on the slipstream all the way to what Draco guesses is the Lake District, far north of where they started. It’s freezing at this altitude, but the chill feels good against his various burns and bruises. Draco keeps his head low and marvels at the enormous pale wings stretched out to either side of him, scarred and pitted but no less magnificent, vibrating with the joy of freedom and the strain of flight. 

Draco doesn’t notice the time passing at all, but suddenly the sun is sinking behind a line of hills and the dragon’s trajectory has altered from a straight line as far away from its prison as possible, to a narrowing gyre as it circles slowly towards a small lake below. Harry yells at them to jump as soon as the ripples along the lake’s surface are visible, and Draco obeys, too breathless to scream.

The water is  _ cold _ , even colder than the air. Draco struggles to keep his body from locking up as he strains towards the surface. 

He comes up for air with a gasp. Fortunately, they’re not too far from shore, and the others are already swimming in that direction, Hermione falling behind Ron and Harry. Draco catches up with her easily, even with his stiff limbs and one hand still clutching the goblet.

“Can you swim?” he asks.

“Only a little,” Hermione admits, panting. She’s clearly struggling.

“I’ll stay with you,” he promises. “It’s not far, come on.”

They make slow but dogged progress, Draco matching his pace to hers. Harry and Ron reach the shore first. When they turn around to find the other two still swimming, they wade back in and pull them the rest of the way. Draco should tell them to shove off, but he’s too busy being grateful- he can hardly feel his legs, much less kick them. 

“It’s You-Know-Who,” Harry says as they all stumble onto dry land. His face is white as the clouds above, his eyes red rimmed. He’s shaking even harder than the cold can account for. “He knows. He’s at Gringotts and he knows what we’ve taken.”

Draco blinks. “What? How could you possibly know that?”

“Harry’s mind and You-Know-Who’s are connected, either because of the rebounded curse when You-Know-Who tried to kill him as a baby, or because You-Know-Who stole a bit of Harry’s blood to resurrect himself,” Hermione answers with a frown, sticking her entire arm inside a tiny beaded bag. “I’m not entirely sure which. Harry, you shouldn’t have seen that, you’re supposed to be blocking your mind-”

“I can’t always help it, you know,” Harry replies testily. 

Draco’s mind reels as he digests this. It was bad enough having You-Know-Who inside his house, but in his  _ mind- _

“I would love to fill you in on the details,” Harry continues as Hermione passes around bottles of dittany and Pepper-Up potion, all from the same bag, “but it’s beside the point. He knows, there’s no time, we have to go, we’ve only got a few hours-”

“Harry, breathe,” Hermione interrupts, steam leaking out of her ears from the potion. “We’re all injured, and we need to dry off or we’re going to get hypothermia.”

“There’s no time!” Harry insists. “Ravenclaw- something of Ravenclaw’s is one of them, and it’s at Hogwarts still, we have to go there now while he’s occupied checking on the others.”

Draco looks at Ron, and looks hastily away again- Ron has stripped off his sopping shirt, and is shrugging on a wool sweater. Instead Draco busies himself with rubbing dittany into his palm. The burn from the goblet (which is no longer hot, thank goodness, and is lying in the grass like it’s trying to convince him of its innocence) is layered precisely over the scar from Aunt Bella’s knife. 

Draco shakes his head at himself and takes off his own shirt, but pauses as the bickering suddenly cuts off. He looks up- all three of them are staring at his chest.

No, not his chest- the  _ scars  _ on his chest: long, jagged, silvery gashes that pepper his torso in a haphazard pattern. Draco feels his face flush, and he rushes to tug the sweater over his head.

“Listen, Draco,” Harry starts, voice hesitant, “I never actually apologized-”

“It’s fine,” Draco interrupts. He can’t look at them. “Water under the bridge, yeah? S’not like I haven’t done my share of damage.”

Ron snorts, Hermione gives a hiccuping sort of giggle, and Harry smiles a little crookedly. “If it makes any difference, I had no idea what that spell did when I cast it.”

Draco sniffs and lifts his head, conjuring up a bit of his old self. “I believe you only because that’s exactly the kind of idiotic thing you would do.”

They all grin, like they’re not fooled at all. Draco coughs. “So what do we do with Hufflepuff’s goblet?”

Hermione frowns. “We’ll just have to keep it with us, for now. We can’t destroy it without the Sword.” 

Draco passes it to her, and she stuffs it in the beaded bag. “It’s no good getting the Horcruxes if we can’t destroy them,” he points out.

Suddenly, Ron jerks to attention. “Hogwarts,” he says.

Harry groans. “That’s what I’ve been  _ saying _ -”

“No, no, shut up,” Ron interrupts. “Hogwarts. The Chamber of Secrets.”

Harry, Hermione, and Draco look at him blankly.

Ron throws up his hands. “The  _ basilisk _ . The Sword is impregnated with basilisk venom, which allows it to kill the damn things, yeah?”

“We can get basilisk fangs from the Chamber of Secrets,” Hermione says, cottoning on. “Ron, that’s  _ brilliant _ .”

“Right, then, that settles it,” Harry replies definitively. “We’re going.”

“What, now?” Draco asks.

“Did you not hear me earlier? You-Know-Who is checking on his Horcruxes as we speak, and he’ll be at Hogwarts himself soon, so _yes_ , we’re going _now_.”

“Harry, we can’t just barge in,” Hermione says. “And anyway, you can’t apparate-”

“-directly onto the grounds, yes, I  _ know _ . We can apparate into Hogsmeade and go from there. But we have to go now, there’s not much time, he could be there any minute-”

“In case you didn’t notice, we just  _ broke Gringotts _ ,” Ron interrupts. “We need to recalibrate, form another plan-”

“Do we really need a plan?  _ Do we _ ?” Harry retorts. “We plan, we go in, the plan falls to shit, every time.”

Hermione scoffs. “So what, we just barge right in and pray?”

“To be fair, it’s not any different than what you usually do,” Draco points out.

Hermione rolls her eyes. “That’s very helpful, Draco, thank you.”

Draco turns back to Ron. “Is it always like this?”

Ron pats him firmly on the shoulder and sighs. “ No, it’s usually much worse.”

⇄

That’s exactly what they do. They barge right into Hogsmeade, and Draco, at least, is praying to every god he can think of. One of them must be listening, because their luck holds out, and they end up hiding out in the Hog’s Head instead of being carted off by Death Eaters. After everything, the revelation that Dumbledore was once human enough to have siblings barely even registers.

While the discussion between Harry and Aberforth quickly devolves into an argument, Draco wanders away to one of the windows, careful to look out without showing his face. The spindly chimneys of the Three Broomsticks are barely visible in the winter gloom, and Draco feels sicker than he did while breaking into Gringotts.

He thinks back to what Harry said earlier, about having V- having  _ him _ in his head. He thinks of the vacant, dreamy expression on Madame Rosmerta’s face when he put her under the Imperius Curse. He imagines Aurors entering her bar, questioning her, how horrible and confusing and  _ embarrassing _ that must have been. He wonders if she knows that  _ he’s  _ the person who did that to her. 

He hadn't meant to hurt her. Or anyone, really. He hadn't thought about it at all. And that, he realizes, is the true problem.

People aren't collateral damage. Ever.

A hand brushes his shoulder, and he leaps about a foot in the air. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Ron says, pulling his hand back and grinning sheepishly. “Just,” he rubs the back of his neck. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Draco looks back out the window, his stomach churning. “Just thinking that my apology list is getting very long.”

Ron’s shoulder bumps his. “You’re paying your dues, mate. You don’t have to offer yourself up on an altar.”

Draco looks back at him with one eyebrow raised, and cocks his head towards the other bar down the street. Ron’s eyes find the Three Broomsticks, and he grimaces. “Okay, yeah. Think you’ll need more than an apology to fix that one.” 

They both continue to stare out the window, saying nothing. Ron’s shoulder barely brushes his every few seconds, which only adds to the confusion in Draco’s gut. 

After a few moments, Hermione meanders over to them and collapses into a chair. “ If they don’t quiet down soon,” she says, jerking her chin towards Harry and Aberforth, who are now nearly screaming at each other, “they’re going to bring every Death Eater in the vicinity down on this place.”

Ron snorts. “That would be our luck.”

As if on cue, the argument ceases abruptly, plunging them all in silence. Draco looks down, and notices Hermione staring at him. “What?” he asks, shifting from one foot to the other.

Hermione’s brow furrows. “Sorry, it’s just-” she twists around to face him more fully- “it’s just, after this, we’re going back to the castle. To Hogwarts. And I know Harry’s hoping that we can get in and out unseen, but the chances of that are incredibly slim.”

Draco frowns, nonplussed. “I’ve already been seen-”

“It’s going to turn into a fight,” Hermione interrupts. “ Most likely a full-out battle. Us versus them. I know it will. And I know you didn’t sign up for that. You agreed to help us get the Horcrux out of your family vault, and you did.”

Draco’s stomach stills, and sinks. 

Hermione plows on. “I’m not trying to make assumptions, or question you. But...if you leave now, no one will blame you.” Her face is open and honest- she genuinely means it.

Beside him, Ron is still as a statue. Harry is seated by the fireplace, staring intently at the nearly dead embers, but Draco knows he’s listening.

“That night on the Tower,” Draco starts, and then has to stop to breathe for a minute. 

“That night, when I was with Dumbledore on- on the Astronomy Tower,” he continues haltingly, “Dumbledore- he tried to talk me out of it. Out of everything- the mission, being a Death Eater, all of it. And he said something. I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘I once knew a boy who made all the wrong choices.’”

Draco’s hands are shaking, so he sticks them in his trouser pockets. “At the time, I thought he was talking about the Dar- You-Know-Who. But now, hearing what he was like when he was younger, what he did...I think he was actually talking about himself.”

Hermione’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline, and even Harry looks up from his self-imposed pity party. Draco can’t even look at Ron.

“I figure Harry’s right," he continues. " Dumbledore might have set you- us- on this path, but it’s not _about_ him, not really. It’s a job that needs doing, and someone has to do it no matter what, so,” he shrugs, “I’ll help you do whatever you need, till  _ he’s  _ gone. If you want.”

Draco thinks he finally understands Luna’s point. Sometimes, anger and resentment are justified. Sometimes, they are galvanizing. And sometimes…

Sometimes, they only get in the way. And the real trick is figuring out which scenario you’re in.

Quiet descends again, thick as the fog pressing against the window. 

"Well, it's not as if we don't need all the help we can get," Ron says at last. Hermione gives a nervous little bark of laughter, and Draco slowly breathes out, not aware that he'd been holding his breath. He feels a rush of gratitude so staggering that his knees almost buckle.

And then Neville Longbottom walks through a painting.

⇄⇄⇄


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday, y'all! This chapter is a little shorter, but the next one will be much longer. Thank you so much to everyone who's left kudos and comments, they make me so happy, y'all don't even know <3
> 
> (also, for reasons that will become obvious later, I should note that in this alt universe I've created, Harry and Ginny aren't into each other)

⇄⇄⇄

Draco’s seventh year. The one he never thought he’d have.

The disappearances started slowly. Longbottom was the first. One day he was there, face covered in bruises but eyes alight with a righteous fire, and the next day he...wasn’t. He hadn’t been taken away, like Lovegood or any of the Muggleborns. He’d simply vanished. Official searches were conducted, rumors were spread, but no one really knew what had happened. 

Ginny Weasley went next. Then another Gryffindor, the one who was always setting things on fire. Then the Patil twins, and a trio of Ravenclaw boys, and then students started disappearing in larger and larger clumps. Loud and challenging, quiet and sneaky, or stubborn and steadfast, it didn’t matter. The only thing they all had in common was that if they saw something happening they thought wasn’t right, they did something about it.

Draco had always assumed that they disappeared because they had died. Were murdered. Put down. The searches, he’d assumed, were just a cover up. The more students disappeared, the more he hunched within himself, vowed to keep his head down. Repeated it over and over in his head like a mantra: _there was nothing he could do_.

He was _so sure_ they’d been killed.

⇄

Draco looks around in amazement at the transformed Room of Requirement, into the faces of classmates he assumed he’d never see again, and wonders when he’ll learn to stop underestimating other people. 

Everyone is here. Everyone he thought he’d never see again. 

By the looks on many of their faces, they’re rather shocked to see him too. The pyromaniac Gryffindor- Finnegan, Draco suddenly recalls- eyes him with open suspicion. 

In contrast, they’re all absolutely fawning over Harry, which still manages to set his teeth on edge. The only exception is Ginny, who’s busy making fun of how Ron’s shoelaces don’t match. Draco supposes that must be how siblings show affection, because although her words are teasing, her face clearly shows how relieved she is that he’s still alive. 

His discomfort only grows as he slowly realizes that he’s the only Slytherin in the room, the walls all bedecked with blue, red, and yellow, but not a scrap of green. He slinks off to a corner while Harry quizzes everyone about where the diadem could be, and runs into Luna.

She’s perched in a hammock, sneakers dangling over the edge as she gently kicks her feet back and forth. Bless her, she looks no more surprised than usual when she sees him. Instead, she pauses her swinging, and pats the space on the hammock next to her. She gives a small smile as he takes a seat. 

“I’m glad you made it,” Draco confesses immediately. Talking to Luna is always so refreshing- there’s no need for context, or social niceties, only honesty. 

“I’m glad you did, too. How has it been, since I left?”

Draco ponders the question, considers the dozens of ways it could be interpreted, the dozens of answers he could give in response to each. “Busy,” he finally says.

Luna snorts. He’s _never_ heard her snort before. She really has changed.

“Yes,” she replies wryly, “here too.”

“I can imagine.” Draco studies her furtively. She hasn’t lost the small amount of weight she regained at the cottage, thank Merlin, but the bags under her eyes never really left, and there’s the faint greenish tinge of a healing bruise on her right temple.

Luna, of course, notices his examination. “It was harder in the beginning,” she admits, “but things like this are always easier with more people.”

_Especially the right kind of people_ , Draco thinks, watching how her eyes track Neville as he moves across the room. He wonders if she even notices that she’s doing it.

He coughs. “How are, er, other things?”

Luna’s smile turns a little wistful, but her eyes stay locked on their target. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’m still figuring that out. You?”

Draco feels himself blush ( _blush! Malfoys do not blush, how vulgar_ ), and pointedly looks at the stone floor and _not_ at Ron, who is deep in conversation with a trio of Ravenclaws. Instead of answering, he asks, “Is it still worth it?”

Luna considers the question for several seconds before answering. “Yes,” she says, finally, decisively. “I believe so.”

Luna believes in many impossible things, so her answer doesn’t surprise him. What does take him by surprise is that he wants to believe her too- he wants her certainty, her faith. Will he ever be capable of something like that? Could he ever make that kind of leap?

A hand lands on his shoulder, and Draco jumps about a foot in the air _again_ , nearly upsetting the hammock. He turns, and Ron is there, _again_ , but this time his expression is unusually solemn. 

“We have to go,” Ron says, and Draco can barely comprehend what he’s saying, struggling to surface from his earlier musings. “Harry thinks he might have an idea of what the next one is.” He turns to Luna. “Do you know anything about Ravenclaw’s diadem?”

Luna tilts her head, considering. “I don’t know enough, but there _is_ someone who probably does.”

Ron nods shortly. “Excellent. Can you go with Harry and Hermione? They’ll need someone to get them into the Ravenclaw common room.”

“I’m not sure she’ll be there,” Luna replies, but she doesn’t object. She hops neatly out of the hammock and drifts over to where Harry and Hermione wait, looking expectant. 

Draco frowns, finally catching up. “What about you and me, then?”

Ron follows Luna, and Draco follows Ron. “Chamber of Secrets, remember? I can get us in. No use in finding the next Horcrux if we can’t get rid of it. We can take care of the cup, too.”

Draco’s feet nearly halt out of pure fear, but he is inexorably drawn towards the firm line of Ron’s shoulders, the curve of his freckled cheek, and he keeps following. “It’ll fight back,” he warns.

Ron only snorts. “Trust me, I _know_.” 

Harry straightens as they approach. “Meet us back here when you’re done,” he says in a very Hermione-esque tone. There’s a gleam in his eyes, like he knows or suspects something the others don’t, and is only waiting for his suspicions to be confirmed. “The cup?”

Hermione whips out her beaded bag, and tosses the goblet to Draco, who catches it and holds it tightly in his hand. He can feel the metal of the handle pressing into the scar on his palm. Draco tries to grin, but it feels wrong on his face, like the corners of his mouth are pushing through cement.

Harry breathes out gustily. “Good. So. Keep out of sight as much as you can.”

“Goes without saying, mate,” Ron retorts, but the quip falls flat. They’re all utterly silent as they exit the Room of Requirement, and instead of hurrying off right away, they waste a few precious moments just staring at each other.

Harry, bravest as always, is the first to break the silence. “Right, well,” he says, nodding sharply. “See you soon.”

It occurs to Draco, right at that moment, that he might well never get another chance, so he turns to Hermione. "Is now a bad time to apologize for calling you 'Mudblood' more times than I can count, or..?"

Hermione gives him a rueful little smile. "We are rather busy at the moment."

"Right," Draco nods. "We'll table it for later." And with that he turns round to chase Ron down the long stone hallway.

⇄⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: *projects my complete lack of spatial awareness and tendency to jump when people touch me unexpectedly onto Draco* no one's gonna know


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all, this chapter is...a lot, not gonna lie. This is where all those tags up above come into play. Trigger warnings for extended panic attack, dissociative episode, graphic depiction of a (died a long time ago) animal corpse, and just general whump-ery (also, egregious abuse of italics, because I'm indulgent like that). If you wanna skip all that, search for "The Chamber shakes" and start reading from there. If you need a non-graphic summary for the bit you skipped, just let me know, and I'll be happy to provide!

⇄⇄⇄

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“A girl’s bathroom?  _ Myrtle’s bathroom? _ ”

“Yep.”

Draco gapes as he follows Ron into the perpetually flooded lavatory. “Do you have  _ any idea _ how much time I spent here in sixth year?” He looks around quickly, but there’s no flash of a silvery pigtail, or the glint of ghostly glasses.

“You mean that time of your life when you were such a pathetic wanker that a ghost was your only friend? Yeah, Harry told me.” 

Draco grinds his teeth. “Should’ve known Harry was a tell-tale. Should’ve known Slytherin was a perverted fucking bastard, too.”

Ron smirks. “What, for hanging around a girl’s loo all day?”

“Excuse you, that is  _ not  _ the same-”

Draco cuts himself off, perplexed, as Ron turns away to closely examine each sink, before Ron utters a triumphant “Aha!”, and gestures to one of the taps- there, just beneath the handle, is an intricately casted snake, the tiny emerald chip that serves as its eye glinting almost...evilly. Which is ridiculous, because it’s just decoration, his family’s manor is crawling with the same motif, but even so…

“I don’t like that at all,” Draco announces, but Ron isn’t listening. His brow is furrowed, his head cocked as though listening to something far away. After a moment’s awkward silence, he opens his mouth, and the sound that issues forth only lasts a second or so but it is horrid, absolutely horrid, a haunted sort of hissing that drags down his spine like cold, clammy fingers-

-the grinding of stone on stone echoes through the small space, making Draco shut his eyes and clamp his hands over his ears. When he opens his eyes, a black, gaping hole has appeared in the floor.

A tunnel.

A tunnel to the Chamber of Secrets.

Draco looks over at Ron, who is staring at the tunnel and wiping his mouth as though he just ate something nasty. “How did you know how to do that?”

Ron grimaces. “That’s how Harry opened it, the- the first time. When we went in to get Ginny. Not the kind of thing you forget.”

Draco shudders.  _ Definitely _ not something you forget- that sound is going to haunt his nightmares forever. “Well,” he says, and looks back at the tunnel. It seems more like a mouth, like it will swallow him whole without bothering to chew. “Shall we?”

Ron nods shortly, and jumps without another word. Draco follows.

⇄

They land hard, on a pile of bones. The fact that none of them appear to be human isn’t much comfort, because there are a  _ lot _ . There are just. So many bones. Draco wonders what a basilisk prefers to eat. How often it needs to be fed. Whether it would eat humans, if it managed not to turn them into stone first.

“You’re sure it’s dead?” he asks Ron, who is already on his feet and dusting off his robes. 

“Absolutely” Ron says, but his expression says that he’s just as frightened as Draco is. He helps Draco up, and they tread as silently as they can down the tunnel. The air is damp and smells distinctly of mildew. Draco shivers, feeling the chill seep deeper into his lungs with every breath.

Draco keeps his eyes trained on Ron’s back as they descend deeper and deeper underground, letting his gaze follow the stiff shifting of his shoulders, the rigid line of his spine. He’s happy to let the other boy lead the way- after all, Ron has been here before. When he was thirteen.

_ Thirteen _ .

Draco’s grip on the goblet tightens, making the scar on his palm itch. It’s been five years since anyone was down here, yet they’re both barely on the brink of adulthood. They’re too young for this. They’re too young, they don’t belong down here. Draco  _ certainly _ doesn’t belong down here, and just who does he think he is, playing at being a hero-

Ron stops abruptly, and Draco smacks right into him. Ron reaches out a hand to steady him, but his eyes are trained forward. Draco looks up to see a large pile of rubble, shifted to one side, and beyond that-

“Is that-” he swallows, and tries again. “Is that the basilisk?”

Ron shakes his head. “Only a skin. Still freaky, though.” He pushes forward, hopping across the rubble, and Draco stumbles after.

It’s more obvious up close, the skin shrivelled and dull, but even so-

“It’s got to be sixty feet long,” Draco breathes.

Ron nods grimly. “Come on, we’ve got to keep going. The Chamber shouldn’t be too much farther on, and we’ll probably have to get the fangs from the corpse itself.”

Draco shudders at that mental image. “What if the fangs don’t have any more venom?” he asks. “What if the corpse is dried out?”

Ron pauses briefly, but shakes his head and keeps walking. “Then we’ll figure something else out. But we’ve got to try this first.” 

Draco follows as always, but more slowly, weighed down by a sudden hopelessness. It won’t work. It’s been so long. It would be a miracle if there were any venom left in the corpse, and miracles don’t happen. Not for him. 

_ Because you’ve never needed them, _ an insidious little voice in his mind hisses.  _ All that wealth, all that privilege- you’ve never had to try, never worked for anything, unless it was out of spite.You are spiteful, Draco Malfoy. You are spiteful and useless and small. Why would the world waste a miracle on one such as you? _

His breath is coming in puffs of vapor, now, the air turned freezing. The goblet in his hand is so cold that it feels like it’s burning. 

He can feel something, a prickling, all over his skin, getting stronger and stronger as they soldier on, till every hair on his arms stands at attention. Dark Magic. A lot of really, really powerful Dark Magic. They’re approaching a set of doors carved into the shape of two stone serpents, and the magic emanates from them in waves that are almost nauseating. The snake on the bathroom sink was unsettling, but these two are downright frightening.  _ They’re just stone _ , Draco tells himself sternly, but they look  _ real _ , malicious and venomous and deadly, and some part of his brain is convinced that they’ll strike if he so much as breathes wrong.

He sees Ron slowly lift a hand, as if entranced, and hurries to snatch his arm back. “Don’t!” he hisses. “Don’t- don’t touch them. They won’t- you can’t- you can’t open them like that.”

Ron turns to him, his brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”

“I just- I can just tell. The magic coming off of them-” Draco runs his hand through his hair, his mind feverish, as he wonders how to explain. “It’s like the magic needs to be placated first. You can’t just push at the doors, you have to open them the right way.”

Ron nods slowly, considering. “Okay. Do you think it’s like the entrance in the bathroom? Maybe you need the password?”

Draco only shrugs. He watches a droplet of sweat run down the column of Ron’s throat- how is he sweating? Draco is  _ so cold _ -

Ron turns back to the snakes. They’re watching them. They’re only stone, but they’re watching.

Ron clears his throat, and hisses something in Parseltongue, long and drawn out and- and  _ commanding _ , and terrifying too-

But the doors don’t open. The snakes smirk, delighted. No, they’re not real, they don’t do anything, but Draco can’t convince himself anymore...

“Guess that wasn’t it,” Ron mutters. “Maybe- argh, I can’t quite remember how it goes-”

Draco waits, feeling lightheaded, as Ron continues to mutter and hiss under his breath. But then he squares his shoulders, and he’s so  _ tall _ , and his profile looks so  _ brave _ , even in the dim, sickly light of the tunnel...

The phrase he utters in Parseltongue is much shorter, but forceful, brooking no argument. The snakes blink without blinking, as though taken aback, but after a moment they really do start to move, unraveling and slithering somewhere out of sight, and the heavy stone doors swing open silently.

Ron turns to Draco, triumph blazing on his face, but Draco can only gesture for him to go through first. Ron obeys, and Draco falls in behind, his thoughts churning.

It’s no use. He has to ask. “How do you know so much Parseltongue?”

Ron stops walking, and rubs the back of his neck, like he’s embarrassed. “Harry talks in his sleep,” is all he offers.

Draco stares. “Ron. The bed curtains have Silencing Spells.”

Ron shrugs defensively, hand flapping vaguely. “It’s, you know, we. Sometimes. Well, sometimes we’d share a bed.”

Draco’s heart sinks. Of course. He’d somehow forgotten.

Ron doesn’t need him. Ron has others. Ron has  _ better _ .

“Right,” Draco says, a little distantly, and starts walking again. He barely registers when the tunnel opens up into a massive chamber, hardly spares the soaring columns and giant statue of Slytherin any attention. His hand is burning, his whole arm is burning, but he only grips the goblet tighter. 

_ You stupid boy _ , the voice in his head whispers,  _ there you go again, coveting what isn’t yours, never satisfied, no. Friendship isn’t enough, is it? It’s more than you ever dreamed, more than you deserve, but you want even more, don’t you? You only ever want more from people. You only ever take from them, you take and take and take… _

Ron’s feet slap against the Chamber floor as he rushes to catch up. “Draco, wait,” he says, and he sounds a little breathless. Draco can’t look at him.

“It’s not what you think,” Ron continues. “Well, no- it is, sort of, but only sometimes- aargh! It’s complicated. It’ll take a while to explain. They’re my best friends, I love them so much, more than anything, but we’re not  _ together _ , not exactly. I promise, it’s not what you think.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are,” Draco hears himself respond.  _ More than anything _ , that inner voice whispers, over and over,  _ more than you _ . “It’s none of my business.”

“Draco, come on.” Ron reaches for his hand, but Draco pulls away. “Talk to me. Please?”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Draco says. “It doesn’t matter, we have more important things to focus on. Anyway, it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fi-  _ fucking Merlin _ , what is that  _ smell _ ?”

He hadn’t noticed at first, but now that he can smell it, he wonders how it escaped him. It’s  _ awful _ . The stench is everywhere, overwhelming. It smells like pus, like infection. It smells like rotting things. Draco, already queasy, nearly vomits. His throat stings with stomach acid, and his eyes water.

“Oh bloody hell, it’s the basilisk,” Ron groans. He’s right- a few meters away, the basilisk’s body lies half-submerged in a pool of water. The half under water is nearly eaten away, flesh ghostly white and dangling in strings off of bleached bone, but the half lying sprawled across the Chamber floor looks almost like it’s been scavenged, rotting away in chunks, body bloated under oily-bright scales, its mouth hanging open almost as if it died screaming-

Ron rushes towards the basilisk, instead of backing away sobbing like a reasonable person, like Draco wants to. He bends to examine the teeth, jutting from the thing’s horrible mouth, and prods one with his finger. He grasps one of the enlarged fangs and pulls hard, and it releases with a loud squelch. He does the same to two others, stuffing them into his pockets as he stands.

He walks back to Draco and offers the largest fang with an outstretched arm, almost like a peace offering. Draco isn’t fooled, though. It’s not an offering at all, but a test. It’s an ultimatum, whether Ron realizes it or not. 

“Careful,” Ron warns, “there’s still venom in the channel. Don’t let it touch your skin.”

Draco doesn’t want to take it. He has to. He knows he has to. He reaches out with a shaking hand, and Ron does most of the work for him, placing the fang in his palm and wrapping his fingers around it. 

Abruptly a rush of pain stronger than any  _ Crucio _ fires through his other arm, and he drops the goblet. Draco gasps, and holds his arms tightly to his chest- distantly he registers the shock in his shins as his legs give out and he hits the floor- but that’s all secondary to the goblet, which is swallowing all of his vision, the eerie light in the tunnel glinting off the golden surface like oil, like basilisk scales, like the knowing look in a judging eye-

Ron is on the ground with him, fingers digging into his shoulders, and he’s saying something but Draco can’t hear, his ears are full of buzzing-

He blinks, and then there are two Rons, and then one, and then two. One laughing, one screaming. One sneering, one sobbing.  _ You knew it would come to this _ , one of them says, only Draco can’t tell which one.  _ You knew this would happen, and you know that you’ll fail. You can’t do it. _

Draco is crying. He can feel the tears carving lines down his cheeks. He can’t breathe.

There is only one Ron, and he is not screaming, he is not laughing. He is beautiful. He is sharp and unearthly and dreadful in his beauty. His eyes are sorrowful and overflowing with pity. Draco feels pitiful. He feels damned.

_ It’s all right _ , Ron says.  _ I knew you couldn’t do it. I tried to help you. I did. But you’re hopeless and you’ll never be strong. I tried to make you brave, but you failed. Somehow I knew you would. I tried, but I still knew. _

Ron reaches a hand up to stroke his cheek, so softly, and Draco wants to sob from how much it hurts. His shoulders hurt. Something is digging into his shoulders, but Ron’s thumb is rubbing back and forth, back and forth across his cheekbone, and Draco can’t think of anything else.

_ We won’t tell anyone _ , Ron vows.  _ It’ll be our little secret. No one will know but us, but I’ll never touch you again, and you will always feel the distance. You will always know, and you will never be able to forget that it’s your fault. But we’ll pretend. I’ll let you pretend to be a hero. I’ll let you pretend that you belong.  _

_ But you don’t belong. _

Ron’s thumb digs into his cheek, harder and harder. Draco doesn’t know anymore if it’s tears or blood running down his face. Both taste like salt.

_ You don’t belong,  _ Ron insists.  _ Not to us. We don’t need you. I don’t need you. Why would I? I have others to kiss, I have others to hold at night. What they give me is infinitely superior to anything you could offer. I don’t need your touch, or your comfort, or your support. Anything you could give is automatically detestable, because it comes from you.  _

_ You are detestable. _

_ You are beyond saving.  _

_ You can never be redeemed, and you can never change. I don’t know why you even tried. _

Draco can’t breathe. He clutches at Ron’s arm and Ron lets him, lets his fingers scrabble pathetically at fabric and skin. He holds on for dear life, afraid Ron will pull away, his touch hurts so much but it will be so much worse if he pulls away-

-screaming, there is screaming, someone is screaming his name-

His vision wavers, and Ron’s hideously beautiful face blinks in and out, and Draco clutches harder, but this isn’t right, something isn’t right-

Ron’s arm. His skin.

It’s  _ perfect _ .

Ron has scars. On his arm, all over his arm. Draco knows. Draco knows, because Ron  _ showed _ him, because Ron let himself be vulnerable, he let Draco  _ see- _

But this Ron’s skin is flawless.

_This isn’t his Ron._

This isn’t his Ron, because his Ron wouldn’t say these things to him, not now. His Ron believes that there is no such thing as irredeemable, his Ron believes in second chances. His Ron wears his vulnerabilities openly and never tries to hide them, his Ron is living proof that people can be wrong and they can atone and they can still be loved in the end, because his Ron is utterly imperfect, inside and out, and Draco loves him, he loves him so much, more than anything-

“Draco, fight it! You have to fight it! Dammit, Draco, you can do this, if I can do it then you can too, I know you can, but you have to  _ fight- _ ”

Draco takes one huge, heaving breath, and his lungs flood with air, and he gasps again, and again, and again and again-

His vision clears, and there is his Ron, freckles sharp against his paper-white skin, peat-dark eyes alight with fury and fear, not at him, but  _ for  _ him-

The fang is still in his hand. The goblet is still on the floor. 

Draco stops thinking, and  _ moves _ . His hand arcs through the air, the tip of the fang aimed right for the enameled badger, and the fang should glance off the hard metal but it sinks  _ in _ , like it’s piercing tissue. Draco stabs, again and again and again, and black ichor flows from the cup like blood, and Draco doesn’t know if the scream is coming from him or the goblet-

The Chamber shakes, and a massive wave of water rises from the pool, and it hits Draco like a wall but Ron has him, Ron has a tight hold on him and he won’t let him go.

Then the wave passes, and they are both drenched to the bone and clinging to each other, and the basilisk corpse is gone along with the cup, and the air smells clean.

It’s done.

They did it.  _ He _ did it.

Draco is still shaking, but Ron hauls them both to their feet and holds him close, arms firm and warm around his shoulders.

“I knew it,” Ron is saying, right into his ear. “You did it, I knew you could-”

Draco lets his chin dig into Ron’s shoulder and he shakes, with fear and shock and want. He’s not sure he can look Ron in the eye, but he knows he needs to, because he needs to see, needs to be sure.

Ron’s eyes are coals on fire. Draco is rendered breathless again, but in an entirely different way. He wants so badly to kiss him it feels as though his bones will combust, like he’ll crumble into a thousand pieces if Ron looks away. His frayed instincts are screaming at him to reach out, to covet, to  _ take _ what he wants like always, but time has thoroughly proved how wrong his instincts often are, and he can’t do it like  _ that _ , not after everything, this is  _ different _ -

⇄

It’s a split-second decision.

⇄

Draco grasps tightly to the collar of Ron’s shirt, a helpless and possibly futile gesture, but gasps out, “May I-” 

\- and only makes it that far before Ron kisses him. 

It’s like bruising, only backwards- the ache in his lips, in his palms as they slide down to Ron’s waist, in his chest as he pulls Ron as close as he possibly can- it’s the pain of healing, of blues and purples fading to yellow and pink. It’s the pain of repair. Ron’s tongue nearly makes Draco’s knees buckle again but he holds tighter, kisses deeper, seeks the pain out, knowing that this kind is different, that it’ll leave him stronger than he was before. 

Draco wants to run his tongue along the puckered skin of Ron’s scars. He wants to plant his lips where Ron’s collarbone meets his neck, and  _ bite _ . So he does.

“Fuck,” Ron hisses, and Draco nearly does go down on his knees, just for that- “Fuck,” Ron repeats, “we don’t have time for this, we really don’t-” he kisses the tip Draco’s nose- another kiss, just above his eyebrow- “but I don’t wanna stop.”

Draco doesn’t want to stop, either. He could stay like this forever, even with their sodden clothing dragging at their limbs, even though he can’t tell whether it’s the residual fear or the newfound lust making him shake.

But Ron is right. They don't have time. Not right now, anyway.

He tells himself that they’ll have time, later. After. Just not right now.

But the choice is made for them in the next moment- Draco springs away when a cold, clear voice echoes around the room, coming from nowhere and everywhere, so like the Horcrux that Draco feels sick all over again-

_ “I know that you are preparing to fight.”  _ Draco’s fingers fly to his arm, expecting the searing burn of the Mark, but it’s still numb, blessedly numb. _ “Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood. _

_ Give me Harry Potter,” _ the voice continues,  _ “and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. _

_ You have until midnight.” _

Draco and Ron look at each other, solemn and silent.

Right. Their personal drama, as pivotal as it feels, can wait. 

It’s time to go.

⇄⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW. What a ride, huh? Finally these boys are getting somewhere.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered reducing the number of canonical deaths, but then I remembered that I like suffering and dragging others down with me, so...ye be warned.

⇄⇄⇄

“Thank Merlin we’re not second-years anymore,” Ron says, breath heavy with the effort of drying their clothes and then Levitating them both out of the Chamber tunnels. “Can you imagine how fucked we’d’ve been, otherwise?”

“We’d have figured it out,” Draco says, with more confidence than he feels. He’s still shaky from what just happened, and he’s never been as good at rallying himself together as he felt he should be. “Malfoys always have an exit strategy.”

Ron cocks an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Nope,” Draco answers shortly, dusting off his robes. “It’s just something we tell ourselves to make us feel better.”

“I dunno,” Ron says as they hurry back to the Room of Requirement. “Your lot are pretty wily.”

Draco snorts. “Being rich enough to pay off your problems isn’t the same as being wily. How did you get out last time, anyway?”

“Phoenix.”

Draco resists the urge to bash his head against the wall. “Of course you did.”

He can’t ask for clarification, though- there’s no time. The battle that Hermione predicted is already in full swing. Draco keeps his head down as they winnow their way around rebounding spells, or statues freed from their plinths and exploding in showers of rock, or deadly plants being lobbed over the walls by what looks like a rogue band of Hufflepuffs, and every time he thinks he sees a pale mask under a dark hood, his heart drops to his toes before beating triple time-

-then there they are, Harry and Hermione, looking both relieved and furious. “You took forever!” Hermione lectures. “What took so long?”

“It’s done,” is all Ron says in response, and Draco is both relieved and disappointed. “Draco took care of the goblet, and I’ve got extras for the last two, if we need.”

“They sent most of the students home, but the Order is here,” Harry updates them. “Including Percy, your whole family, Ron- Ginny ran off, I dunno where she went-”

“Of course she did,” Ron mutters darkly, before his eyes suddenly grow wide. “Wait- wait, we’ve forgotten some!”

“Who?” asks Hermione.

“The house elves,” Draco interjects, with a sudden burst of understanding, like he and Ron are riding the same wavelength. “No one’s warned them-”

“We need to get them out of here!” Ron yells over a distant explosion. “We can’t- what if they end up like Dobby almost did? We can’t order them to die for us-”

Draco’s vision is suddenly obscured by a lot of bushy black hair as Hermione mobs them both, her arm wrapped tightly around his ribcage. The soft kiss she plants on his cheek is somehow more surprising than the firm one she lands on Ron’s mouth. Draco is so distracted by how odd it  _ doesn’t _ feel that he barely spares Harry’s Patronus a glance as it gallops past.

“There, I’ve sent word to Kreacher,” Harry says, looking highly amused. “He can pass the news to everyone else. But we have to go, I know what the diadem looks like and I’m pretty sure I know where it is.”

Hermione steps back, looking a little embarrassed, and nods. Ron looks very red. Draco is…

Draco is bookmarking this moment to contemplate later. He has  _ many  _ moments to contemplate later. This battle is very inconveniently timed.

Harry turns back to the blank wall that disguises the entrance to the Room of Requirements, brow furrowed in concentration. After a moment, a small door appears. A very familiar door.

Draco’s entire body goes cold.

⇄

Henchmen. Cronies. Allies.

Had they ever been anything more to each other?

Had there ever been a possibility of a future where they treated each other like anything but pawns, calculating the odds, weighing the costs, making bets and praying they paid off in the end?

Had they ever managed to truly be  _ friends _ , even for the smallest of moments?

Maybe it didn’t matter.

Maybe it mattered more than anything else in the world. 

Either way, Draco never gets to find out.

⇄

“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’LL KILL YOU, DRACO,” Ron bellows, but Draco can’t stop, the Fiendfyre is hot on their heels and gaining every moment, Crabbe started it but he can’t stop it and Draco can’t shake the feeling that he’s really the one that started it, years and years ago-

They’ve run into a dead end. Crabbe and Goyle whip out their wands, but Draco spots the mountain of desks and throws caution to the wind.

“CLIMB!” he orders, and miraculously, they all obey. Draco doesn’t think about how slick his grip is, or what will happen when the base of this mountain of debris is consumed by the enchanted flames. He can see Harry and Hermione on brooms, racing towards them, Ron flagging them down with wide sweeps of one arm- they only need to survive a few more moments-

There’s so much smoke. Draco coughs, lightheaded, but determined to climb higher, higher, Fiendfyre already snapping at his heels-

A sudden burst of pain in his side- Crabbe swings his leg back for another kick, his face distorted with anger and betrayal. He kicks again and Draco dodges- a crash from his other side- Ron is gripping an unconscious Goyle in his arm while he to clings one desk with white fingers- Crabbe kicks out again, but his foot goes wide-

-he overbalances-

Crabbe falls.

Draco can only watch. An eternity condenses into half a moment- Crabbe’s eyes widen, his mouth opens in a scream- his arm reaches out, fingers stretched wide, and Draco makes a grab for him but misses by centimeters- 

-and then Harry is there, grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him onto the large, ancient broom, and Crabbe disappears into the flames, his scream cutting off abruptly. They fly off as soon as Draco is seated, Hermione with Ron and Goyle not far behind, racing through smoke, dodging explosions as unstable magical objects combust in the heat-

-the open door emerges from the gloom, like the light at the end of a very short tunnel, and they soar through, slamming into the opposite wall and collapsing in a heap on the floor- 

-Hermione waves her wand and the door slams shut behind them-

-and Draco’s heart shatters. 

“ _ Crabbe _ ,” he sobs, but it’s too late. A boy he’s known since they were in nappies, a boy he never truly knew at all, is gone, and it’s too late. It’s far too late. 

Goyle is lying beside him on the floor, utterly still. Draco scrambles for his wrist and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds a pulse, weak but steady. 

Harry is on his other side, panting heavily, arm slung around Ron’s shoulders while he coughs weakly. And Hermione-

Hermione is staring intently at something in her hand.

It looks rather like a tiara, silvery and delicate, with a large sapphire set into its center. Draco sees the words  _ man’s greatest treasure _ , and understands immediately.

Hermione sets the diadem-  _ Ravenclaw’s _ diadem- gently on the ground, and holds her hand out without taking her eyes off of it. After a moment, Ron shuffles around, pulls a basilisk fang out of his pocket, and places it in her hand. Hermione raises it high, but pauses, a strange gleam in her eye. Her hand trembles, and her face goes pale.

Draco thinks for one despairing moment,  _ She won’t do it, she can’t do it _ -

But the fang falls in an efficient, neat arc, right into the center of the sapphire. The diadem explodes in a shower of ash and ichor, and Draco swears the thing screams, tinny and pathetic.

But there’s not any time to feel relieved or thankful- Harry falls back to the ground, clutching his forehead and groaning. Draco hears Ron whisper, “Let it happen, let him in, we need to see where he is, then we can find him and  _ end this _ -”

Draco glances at Hermione, but her face is steely, impassive, and she says nothing. 

Draco turns and drags Goyle’s still-unconscious form into a secluded alcove, and hopes this is enough to keep him safe until he wakes up. After a pause, he steals Goyle’s wand from where it’s sticking out of his back pocket. If he does wake up, he’ll need it to defend himself, but Draco prays he uses his one ounce of sense to lie there and play dead until the battle ends. 

The wand is like a stranger in his hand, but Draco knows instinctively that he’ll be able to use it, coerce it to his will, and if that doesn’t exactly sit well in his stomach, it does at least make him feel safer. 

When he turns back around to the others, Harry is no longer convulsing. They eye the wand in his hand as he approaches, but none of them say anything about it. 

“He’s at the boat house, or he’s heading there now,” Harry says, panting heavily. “He’s- Snape is there too. He’s going to meet Snape, he has Nagini with him-”

“So let’s go,” Ron says, standing up swiftly and dusting ash off his jeans. They have to help Harry stand; his legs are still a little shaky, but he pushes them off when he’s fully upright. 

Draco spares one last glance back at Goyle’s form, still unmoving. It’s too little, too late, for so many things, but even so...

He casts a hurried Concealment Charm, relieved when the wand obeys with barely any resistance, before running to catch up with the others. 

⇄

Getting to the boat house is easier said than done. “Chaos” is too mild, too neutral a word- “utter pandemonium” would be more accurate. Draco can’t even tell what direction they’re headed, familiar halls rendered alien as flashing lights illuminate crumbling walls, screams and shouts pulling his attention every which way. They have to double back and reroute several times to dodge knots of fighting, throwing the odd spell at random Death Eaters whenever they think they can get away with it. Draco swears that the very walls are moving and that the stone floors are shifting beneath them, as if the castle itself is trying to join the fight. 

Scenes flash by like staged tableaux- 

-Ron’s brother bellows “ROOKWOOD!” as he thunders past, hot on the heels of a Death Eater with half a mask missing- 

-Greyback sinks his teeth into Lavender Brown’s shoulder- “No!” Hermione screams, and Greyback is flung back with a flash of red light, but Lavender doesn’t move- 

-Professor Lupin and Draco’s cousin, Nymphadora, back to back and surrounded by Death Eaters- Ron and Draco stun two of them as they sneak past, but they don’t have time to help with the others, they have to keep moving- 

-they stumble into the courtyard and keep running, but there’s something- something ahead of them-

“FUCKING SPIDERS,” Ron bellows in terror, and he’s right, they’re giant spiders, so large Draco’s brain almost refuses to believe what he’s seeing, and they’re coming straight for them, a wall of giant spiders, and there’s nothing they can do, the spiders are almost upon them already-

-but in the next second they’re all flung back by a wave of white-blue light, and Aberforth is on his right, casting an astonishingly powerful goat Patronus-

“WHERE’S POTTER?” Aberforth yells over the cacophany, and Draco turns, but Harry isn’t on his left, and he isn’t in front of him, or behind-

He’s gone. 

All the noise drops out of the world as the three of them realize this at the same time. They can’t see Harry, anywhere around them. He’s just...not there. 

And then all movement in the courtyard grinds to a halt as high-pitched ringing echoes around the courtyard, as people fall to their knees or clap hands over their ears, and Draco thinks,  _ Not again, not again, will I ever be free from this _ -

The ringing morphs into Voldemort’s voice, a chilling whisper that still somehow makes itself clearly heard over the chaos:

_ “You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses, and if you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one.” _

Draco shudders, over and over and over, he tries to block out the voice but he can’t, he’s powerless, they’re all powerless to do anything but listen-

_ “I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured. _

_ Harry Potter, I now speak directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, Harry Potter, I shall enter the fray myself, and I shall find you, and I shall kill every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me.  _

_ One hour.” _

⇄ ⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I use the exact same device to end two chapters in a row? YEP.
> 
> Also, the full nature of the Trio's relationship will be more thoroughly explained...eventually. In the epilogues I plan to write. I should probably get on that, huh?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Workweeks after a long holiday weekend are AWFUL, but posting this has been a bright spot! Hope y'all enjoy! 
> 
> (also the number of chapters has been changed from 18 to 17, since I ended up mashing two chapters together)

⇄⇄⇄

The Great Hall is the last room that is both intact enough and large enough to contain everyone, so that is where they all congregate. Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey try to organize some kind of triage with what few supplies weren’t destroyed in the fight. Bottles of dittany are passed around like flagons of firewhiskey, and firewhiskey is repurposed as disinfectant. Draco takes off his button up and starts shredding it for bandages, and a few others follow suit, casting Scouring Charms on whatever spare clothing can be found.

Despite being May, the Great Hall is chilly, and Draco shivers in just his undershirt. The Mark on his arm is exposed, but no one comments on it- in fact, most people spare him hardly more than a glance as he passes out makeshift bandages. It’s a relief. He doesn’t want attention, doesn’t want an argument or a fight. He’s so tired, and he wants to rest, but he can’t. He has to keep moving, has to stay distracted. Has to keep his eyes away from the south corner of the Hall, where the Weasley family is congregated around the corpse of Fred Weasley. 

Draco has absolutely no idea what to do. His newly-born instincts are screaming at him to go to Ron, offer an arm or a shoulder, but surely he can’t be wanted. Everything that’s happening- everyone that’s died- it’s all because of people like him, like his family. 

So he holds Padma Patil’s hand while Pomfrey heals what’s left of her left leg until she collapses, and he thinks she’s died until Pomfrey assures him that she’s just passed out from shock, and she’ll wake up soon. He passes out tea that Trelawney has brewed from Merlin knows what, he helps Aberforth reset Finnegan’s dislocated shoulder, and patches up a long cut on Dean Thomas’ cheek. Lavender Brown’s face is an absolute mess, but if she lives through the hour, then she’ll probably keep living. The same can’t be said for Michael Corner, or the two Gryffindor boys who used to follow Harry around all the time and drive Draco spare. Any time Draco comes across a body that’s a little too still, a face that’s a little too pale, a knot of people clutching each other and crying, he turns around and heads in the other direction. He doesn’t want to know who. He doesn’t want to know how many. 

But then he turns, and Mrs. Weasley is right in front of him. Draco freezes, utterly tongue-tied and ready for a verbal lashing or maybe a curse, but she doesn’t hurt him or yell at him.

She hugs him. 

She smells like black tea and clove, like blood and sweat and night air, and Draco’s eyes are suddenly overflowing. He misses his parents so intensely that it leaves him breathless. He clings, like a child ten years his junior.

“I’m so sorry,” he sobs into her hair. “I’m so- I’m so sorry about Fred, I didn’t want this, any of this-”

“I know you didn’t,” she murmurs soothingly, and this is backwards, her son just  _ died _ , he should be the one consoling  _ her _ -

“I’m so sorry about your parents,” she continues. “And I wanted to thank you for looking after Ron and the others.”

“I didn’t, not really,” Draco confesses, “It’s more like they looked after me.”

Mrs. Weasley pulls away slightly to give him a small smile. “That’s not the way my boy tells it.” Her thumb comes up to trace the dark shadows under his eyes. “You’ve been so busy. Have you rested at all?”

“I had some tea,” Draco replies a little faintly, but he’s being gently and firmly tugged over to where the other Weasleys are still sitting. They’ve covered Fred’s face with his suit coat, for which Draco is grateful. Bill gives him a short nod as he sits next to Hermione. Hermione just threads her arm through his and lays her head on his shoulder, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“Have you seen Harry anywhere?” she whispers.

Draco shakes his head, and she sighs. “He’s gone to him. To Voldemort.”

“Probably.”

“Bloody idiot,” Ron grumbles as he appears before them, collapsing at their feet and dropping his head into Draco’s lap. “Of course he would go off by himself.”

Draco gulps. His fingers itch to run themselves through Ron’s dirty hair and work out some of the tangles, but he’s hyperaware of Ron’s family all around them, and he’s not sure what they know or what’s acceptable, so he clutches his own thigh instead. “What happens if he- you know-”

Ron’s expression goes stormy. “Then we finish what he started. The snake is the only Horcrux left, and then we can kill him.”

Draco’s stomach drops, and his fingernails dig further into his thigh. “I don’t think I can kill anyone. I’ve  _ tried _ already, and I couldn’t. Not directly, not on purpose.”

“That’s all right,” Hermione replies, voice as dark as the look in Ron’s eyes. “There are plenty of people in this room who’ll gladly try.”

“I don’t think Harry could, either,” Draco adds hesitantly. 

Neither of them respond. They already know, and if Harry has gone to face Voldemort by himself, then they know what that likely means.

⇄

The hour passes.

Nothing happens. 

People sit up straighter, wipe their eyes and square their shoulders, clutch their wands in their fists, and wait.

And wait.

Draco can feel sweat beading at the back of his neck. He’s so rigid with tension that he’s started to shake.  _ What does this mean? _ If they’re not being attacked, have they won? Has Harry- did he somehow-

It’s probably only minutes, but it feels like hours, sitting there while he swings wildly between hope and fear. He almost doesn’t notice the noise at first, it’s so faint. But slowly, gradually, a sound builds in the distance- whooping and hollering, cheers, the occasional explosion from a firing wand. Draco feels the blood drain from his face, and he leaps to his feet almost without realizing it.

All those in the Great Hall who are still able to walk rise as one, and form an instinctive flow through the giant double doors and into the courtyard. There’s hope on some faces, despair on others, but Draco already knows what they’ll find, he already knows and he doesn’t want to see but he can’t stop himself, none of them can. 

Harry.

That’s his body, clutched tightly in Hagrid’s arms, scar livid on his blood-drained forehead, glasses broken and dangling off one ear. Ron’s hand clutches his, fingernails raking across his skin. Draco hardly feels it. Voldemort is saying something, gesticulating grandly while the Death Eaters behind him jeer and taunt, but Draco’s ears are filled with thunder, and he can’t hear a thing.

Because-

Because a flash of white blonde catches his eye, and he has to double-take, because it can’t be, it must just be a trick of the light-

But no, his eyes aren’t deceiving him, and his breath is turning to ice in his lungs as he tries to comprehend what he’s seeing, as they get closer, as his vision tunnels until nothing else exists but their faces, because-

Because his  _ parents _ are here.

They’re alive. 

They’re  _ here _ . 

Sallow-skinned, hair matted, bags under eyes, movements slow and careful as they approach Voldemort and then stand beside him, like they’re bruised, like they’re injured. Like it hurts.

Voldemort looks right at Draco, and smiles. 

  
⇄ ⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MOTHERFUCKIN PLOT TWIST
> 
> *evil cackling*


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger in the last chapter (but also kinda not sorry haha). This chapter is very short, but I hope it still packs a punch!
> 
> The next chapter will be the last- Chapter 17 will actually be a playlist.

⇄⇄⇄

Draco has never outright disobeyed his parents. He’s never needed to.

They were strict in their own way, but this strictness somehow never applied to his bad behavior, and their high standards didn’t affect how he was allowed to treat other people. Tantrums were appeased, hurtful pranks were excused, laziness was disregarded. If he wanted something, all he had to do was ask. If he  _ didn’t _ want to do something- well. That was what servants were for, so no harm done, right? 

Draco has never told his parents no. Not when it would cost him. Not when it might mean pain.

⇄

It can’t be.

_ It can’t be _ , this is a trick, he  _ knew  _ they were dead, he  _ felt them die _ -

He can hardly breathe. His lungs feel ragged. His whole chest  _ hurts _ . Voldemort is speaking again, but he still can’t hear past the roaring in his ears, and now his parents are speaking and their mouths form the words  _ Come back to us _ …

He thought they were dead.

It’s always been them, just the three of them against the entire world, protected in their small, selfish unit.  _ Malfoys are on no side but their own _ . It might as well be the family motto. 

He thought they were dead.

He’s been putting himself at risk, unknowingly putting them at risk too. His eyes sweep over them, again and again, cataloging each visible injury, wondering how many he can’t see. Every decision he’s made since his first night at Shell Cottage has clearly been paid for with their suffering.

He thought they were dead. 

He thought he  _ killed _ them.

But no. Here they are, arms outstretched, beckoning to him. What he’s wanted so desperately for weeks, so desperately that he’s nearly lost all hope more times than he can count. What was once his ultimate weakness, the perfect weapon to convince him to surrender.

But.

He wants other things now, too. He  _ has  _ them, and  _ more _ . Ron is by his side, white-faced and agonized and furious, outward reflection of everything Draco feels inside. 

His parents are alive.

Harry is dead.

They’re probably all doomed. Draco is standing with the losing side, the side he’s always been taught to avoid, no matter what.

His parents are alive. But.

But.

They made their choices, over and over again, refusing to grow past the boundaries of their comfortable life, refusing to learn. He sees that now.

He loves them, more than he can explain. But he can't do as they do, not anymore.

It’s time for Draco to make his  _ own  _ choice.

He has no reason to keep his feet planted right where he is. He has  _ every  _ reason. Ron is by his side. That is Ron’s hand in his, grasping him so tightly that the tips of his fingers are going numb. Anchoring him. Reminding him that he isn’t, and has never been, alone. He is  _ surrounded  _ by people, by their faith and their forgiveness, their…

...their friendship.

And suddenly, the stupidest choice he could ever make is somehow the easiest. 

Seconds trickle by in utter silence, and the smug smile slides from Voldemort’s face.

His parents beckon to him, and Draco doesn’t go. 

⇄ ⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact- this scene in the movie is what inspired this entire fic. I started imagining scenarios where Draco stayed where he was, then started contemplating all the canon changes that would have to happen in order for him to make that massively out-of-character decision, and, well, here we are!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, y'all! Thank you to everyone who's left comments and kudos, I can't even begin to tell y'all how much your kindness has meant to me. I hope the ending doesn't disappoint!

⇄⇄⇄

After, in the days and weeks and months and even years _after_ , Draco is never truly able to describe exactly what happened. Too much happens all at once, events too tangled with each other to unravel into a coherent narrative. All Draco truly knows is that Voldemort’s spells can’t hold- he tries to silence them, but their voices break free; he tries to torture them, but it’s as if they’re shielded from his touch; he tries to control them, but their minds are too strong to conquer. Fighting breaks out again as both sides explode in fury, and Draco’s world is reduced once more to weave-fire-dodge, deadly spells just missing him as he completely loses track of Ron and Hermione in the melee, as he prays not to run into his parents because he isn’t sure what he would do, isn’t sure if he can fight them twice, his aunt dies right before his eyes and Neville somehow has the Sword and the final Horcrux is destroyed-

-and then Harry emerges from the chaos, whole and well, the second miracle in as many hours, and it is him and Voldemort in the eye of the storm, and no one else dares to interfere-

-and then Voldemort is dead. And the battle is over. The _war_ is over.

Just like that. 

It’s impossible. Unthinkable. That someone who’s haunted them all for so long, for _decades_ , could die so suddenly and easily. 

For a moment, the world is suspended in stillness, in shared incredulity. Then time revs up and Death Eaters start Disapparating as fast as they can, everyone else scrambling to capture whoever they’re able to reach before they disappear. The number of people they manage to catch is pitifully small. Draco’s parents aren’t among them. Crabbe’s father is.

Once they’re secured, though, no one is exactly sure what to do with them. The number of Aurors who had quit rather than serve Voldemort’s puppet government is even smaller than the number of captured. There’s basically no functioning government right now. The Ministry is all but empty, and it’ll take months to sort through all the paperwork and re-establish any kind of due process.

No one knows what to do with the corpse, either. Draco certainly won’t go near it, refuses to even look at it. He thinks they move it into a side room eventually. He rather hopes that they just toss it off a cliff and let it rot. Now _that_ would truly be poetic justice.

But even with all the confusion, the ambience in the Great Hall is almost a complete reversal of what it was just a few hours ago. Sheets of sunlight literally pierce through the cloud cover; tense whispers are replaced with laughter; stitches are straighter, because hands are no longer shaking. This time, instead of circling around the hall and burying himself in work, Draco collapses onto one of the benches and buries his head in his hands.

He is _so tired_.

The bench dips slightly as someone sits heavily next to him, and Draco knows without looking that it’s Ron. 

“Are my parents still here?” Draco asks softly.

“I haven’t seen them,” Ron admits. “Maybe they left?”

Draco sighs gustily. “I hope so.” 

Ron slings an arm over his shoulder, and they sit in silence for a few moments, watching as McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley, with the help of a few house elves, conjure up enough food for everyone. He knows he should probably eat, but Draco can’t stomach even the idea of food right now. 

Draco clears his throat. “What are they- I mean, um- what are they gonna do with, y’know, everyone?”

Draco dares a look at Ron’s face- there’s anger there, sure, but mostly just exhaustion. “Dunno. I think they’re under stasis charms right now.”

“How many?”

“Fifty, at least.”

Draco drops his face back into his hands. _Merlin_. He has no idea what to say, so he turns and presses his face into Ron’s shoulder, not even caring if anyone sees. Ron clings to him with a sudden fierceness, so maybe it was the right thing to do. 

This- _all_ of this- it feels so fragile, like it will burst into pieces with the slightest wrong move. Everyone looks so happy, but their smiles are a little manic, the laughter is a little desperate. And Draco realizes- it’s a _veneer_ of happiness, not the real thing. Today is for celebrating, but tomorrow will be for truly reckoning with the damage- struggling to fix what can be fixed, and learning to live with what can’t. 

Hermione finds them after a while and sits on his other side, and it should be comforting, another wall to lean against, but suddenly Draco only feels hemmed in. He can feel the panic building under his skin again, and he should stay, he owes them his presence, he owes them so much-

-but he _just can’t_ right now. He leaps to his feet and practically runs to the courtyard, not daring to look back at their probably disappointed expressions. 

⇄

It’s easier to breathe outside the castle, where the mountain wind has carried away the smell of blood and body odor, leaving only fir and lakewater. 

Draco stops running, and simply breathes.

The damage to the castle is easier to see now that it’s daylight, but he can’t tell if that’s worse or...somehow...better? It’s easier to see _how_ the damage happened, where the breaks are. Harder to look at, but...easier to see how it might be fixed. 

The buzzing under his skin calms, just a little bit.

It takes a minute to realize he’s not alone like he thought- Harry is out here too, running his hand along a burn mark down one column, his brow furrowed. 

Draco kicks at a piece of rubble to announce his presence, and Harry turns to him with a grimace. “Sorry. I know I should be inside, but…”

“Too much?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Draco snorts. He’s been doing that a lot lately. He likes it. It would drive his mother spare to hear it. “For once, Potter, I think I agree with you. And stop apologizing, your Savior skills aren’t needed anymore anyway.”

Harry’s expression twists into a wry little smile. “Thank Merlin.”

“You’re ruining the moment with your sincerity,” Draco says, bumping their shoulders. “Stop it.”

They survey the courtyard together, and Harry’s frown returns. “It’s so- there’s so much to be done.”

“Yeah. We’ll get it done, though.”

Harry turns to him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Draco says with a firm nod. “Not today, though,” he adds in a warning tone. “You’re doing fuck all today.”

Harry, predictably, sighs, like he was planning on starting the repairs right this moment, and Draco shakes his head. Still, something odd unfurls itself inside his chest, almost like when he and Ron kissed, but softer, gentler. Less overwhelming. He thinks it might be...hope. Somehow, by comforting Harry, he’s managed to comfort himself, too.

Draco makes a note of it.

“There you are!” Hermione’s voice rings out, startling them both. They turn, and both she and Ron are aiming straight for them, climbing over debris rather than going around. The thing in Draco’s chest unfurls even further, at the idea that they came to _him_ , that they’re joining him out in the open air instead of dragging him back inside. 

Hermione softly smacks Harry in the back of the head as soon as they reach them. “Don’t ever pull something like that ever again!” she lectures, eyes fierce and fearful. “We’ve been sick with terror since you disappeared. Explain yourself, mister!”

Harry rubs the back of his head sheepishly, and nods toward the edge of the parapet. As one, they all sit on a bit of railing that’s still relatively stable-looking, legs dangling and knocking against one another, a bit playful, a bit reassuring.

Harry tells them everything. Some of it is easier to believe than the rest. Draco can fully comprehend Snape and Dumbledore being dramatic arseholes and refusing to disclose crucial information until it’s almost too late. But the idea that he was once, however briefly, the owner of the Elder Wand? It makes the greedier part of himself take notice, and that alone is enough of a warning sign for Draco.

So when Harry asks what to do with it, before the other two can respond, Draco promptly replies, “Destroy it. Otherwise, people will just keep killing each other to get it. Though I don’t know why they would,” he continues with an affected little sniff, “that thing is probably the ugliest wand I’ve ever seen. You can’t go around waving that about, you’d look a right prat.”

The other three only smile at each other knowingly. 

“I think you’re right,” Harry says, “but one thing first.” He digs the two splintered ends of his old wand out of his pocket- Draco is thoroughly unsurprised that he’s been carting them with him this whole time, the sentimental weirdo- and uses the Elder Wand to heal them into one flawless, fully-functioning whole.

Then he snaps the Elder Wand over one knee and throws it into the ravine without a second glance. 

⇄

They don’t go back inside immediately. Instead, they choose to linger in the rare sunshine and relative quiet. There will be time to find Luna and Neville later, and get their side of the tale. Time to convene with the teachers and other students, and pull together an action plan. Time to bury, time to mourn, time to find an answer to the ever-present question: _What next?_

They finally have _time_ , and they can luxuriate in the privilege of wasting a few minutes. And for now, Draco wants to sit in this moment of peace that, for better or worse, is unlike anything he’s ever known before. 

He knows tomorrow is coming, and faster than he would like. But then, not so very long ago, Draco couldn’t have imagined that a day like today was even possible. So maybe, if they get to have today, they can survive whatever tomorrow brings.

Ron places a kiss on his temple, and Draco can’t help but smile.

⇄⇄⇄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you thank you THANK YOU. I've never written something this long before, and everyone has been so kind and supportive and wonderful!!! Eventually this work will get added to a collection whenever I finally get around to writing sequels, so if you have lingering questions, don't worry- I do eventually plan on addressing them.
> 
> Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH ME THROUGH THIS SILLY AND INDULGENT LITTLE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT THAT GOT WAY OUT OF HAND


	17. Chapter 17

Hi all! I'm doing the same thing I did for The Way Our Story Goes, and posting the playlist I made and listened to while writing most of the fic. Not featured: every song Mitski has ever written (Draco is a Mitski bitch and I WILL fight you on this). 

I've posted a link to the playlist on Spotify, but I've also written out the songs individually if you'd rather build your own playlist on your preferred listening platform.

Love y'all, and happy listening!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37hsuSjYg9LrVJqoq5NB85?si=A-g4joeIRROXCSFiBIgcIg

Playlist Title: Keep Them On A Leash

Mipso: Water Runs Red

The National: Sorrow

Regina Spektor: Hero

Imogen Heap: Hide and Seek

The Civil Wars: Disarm (cover, I think)

Chasing Grace: Dinner Will Be Served

The Civil Wars: Talking In Your Sleep (okay this one is DEF a cover)

Lianne La Havas: Never Get Enough

Beyoncé: Crazy In Love (50 Shades of Grey version)

Hozier: Arsonist's Lullaby

Bastille: An Act of Kindness

The Script: Flares

Anthem Lights: Out of the Woods (cover)


End file.
